Getting Oprahâ€™s Attention: Going Home, Lessons Learned

Today the founders of ILiveInspired, who mounted a seven-day walking campaign to get a seven-minute meeting with Oprah Winfrey, are going home. Read our original post and our updates.

They’re leaving without their prize in hand. Oprah hasn’t granted an audience. So the duo is headed back to Washington, D.C., to pursue more conventional outreach methods: like drafting a formal query for a business meeting.

“They felt like they were surprised,” says founder Chris Deutsch, referring to Oprah’s team. “We let them know we were coming through emailing their Web site, but we didn’t do a formal business request.”

But he and his partner Rob aren’t leaving empty handed. They got some press out of their efforts, which could translate into new business. But they wonder: Did the media attention cost them Oprah’s attention?

“The sense I got was that they were not thrilled with that,” Chris says of the publicity.

Such are the potential tradeoffs of guerilla marketing, as we discussed in our first post. Creativity may get you publicity, but not always exactly what you want.

Readers, do you think ILiveInspired would have done better with Oprah by flying under the radar? Or do you think their odds of meeting her are a long shot, and at least they got some ink for their efforts?

Update: The company removed the video from YouTube after learning that Harpo doesn’t accept hand-delivered letters. This video showed them on the way to do just that.