Kris Jenner: The Marketing Mastermind you never expected
Season 1(2007):
Season 14 (2017):
Unless someone’s been living under a rock, everyone has heard of the infamous family that is the Kardashians. This past month they celebrated a milestone that is rare for any reality TV show, 10 years on the air with Keeping up with the Kardashians. What I’m curious about is how they have managed to keep their audience entertained throughout the years, and after researching the show and how it is developed, I have formed the theory that Kris Jenner is the mastermind behind the Kardashian family.
Ask a group of people off the street why the Kardashians are famous, some of the answers would be, “Kim’s infamous sex tape,” “their dad was one of OJ’s lawyers,” or “I have no idea.” They probably have don’t realize that it was Kris Jenner who got her family this big break that has allowed them to live the lavish lives they do currently. The idea came to Kris after a friend of hers spent a night with the family. She was on her way home when she stopped Kris and said, “Your family is completely insane, you could have your own television show.” It was then that Kris contacted a young producer, Ryan Seacrest, who saw the same potential in the family that Kris’ friend saw. Keeping up with the Kardashians was picked up faster than any other show in E! Entertainment history.
When the show first aired it was a trainwreck people couldn’t stand to look away from; they acted as if they were upper class clowns. In the first four seasons, the family did not deal with any “major” problems. The worst thing to happen to the family was Kim losing her diamond earring in Bora Bora while staying in a private bungalow above the ocean. This is what us normal folks call “first world problems.” There was no real substance to the show, only fights about who was jealous of Kim’s new Bentley. After four years of the Kardashians acting as upper class clowns, the viewers grew tired of it and ratings started to slip. Something needed to happen fast in order to keep the show afloat.
What does Kris Jenner do to keep the fans entertained? Turn the show into a soap opera. It’s common knowledge that soap operas do very well when it comes to staying on air for a long period of time, so it was the perfect change for Keeping up with the Kardashians if they wanted to continue to make this show their career. They went from upper class clowns only dealing with “first world problems” to dealing with marriage, divorce, transgender people, and more. The big sign to the audience that the Kardashian’s were switching up the way they do things, was with Scott and Kourtney. Scott and Kourtney had been with us since episode one with the petty arguments and jealous antics. It all changed when Kourtney found out she was pregnant, Scott was in no shape or form to become a father because of his constant partying, so Kourtney gave Scott an ultimatum that if he did not go to rehab, he might never get the chance to meet his child. This was a change for the show to deal with more serious situations such as parenthood; Kris Jenner even revealed in her book that this switch up was 100% planned. The numbers started to slowly climb, but Kris Jenner wasn’t going to be happy until ratings hit an all time high.
Headlines reading “Kim’s 72 Day Marriage; Mistake or Fake?” filled every newsstand in November of 2014. Rewind to earlier that year where everyone was so excited for a Kardashian to marry. We’d followed the relationship of Kim Kardashian and Chris Humphries for about a year and were ecstatic to see Kim happy after her heartbreaking breakup with football star Reggie Bush. Fans of the show fell in love with Chris and the way he treated Kim so when they announced a wedding it was no surprise that it was the highest rated episode to date. It was as overtop as one can imagine for a girl like Kim, but it shocked everyone when it to fail 72 days later. This is when all the drama started to feel like a soap opera. There was talk surrounding this divorce that ranged from it being a publicity stunt to Chris being a violent husband, Absolutely NO ONE knew what had happened except for the individuals involved. The following season was all focused on what had went wrong. Certainly, fans were going to tune in to see what had really happened with the marriage that just months ago, seemed like a fairytale. That season also introduced us to a strategy the Kardashian family was starting to use: media manipulation. Momager (that is manager + mom), Kris Jenner, started to manipulate the media in her interactions. After the divorce happened, I could only imagine how many times Kim was asked to talk about it. Instead of giving an interview, teaser trailers for the new season would come up and give fans a sneak peaks on what went wrong. Fans were forced to watch the show if they wanted to know exactly had happened between Kim and Chris. This was the first time the Kardashian Family did this, but it definitely was not the last.
Over the years, Kris Jenner has mastered the art of manipulating the media to her advantage. More and more over the years we see the Kardashians confirming fewer and fewer rumors in the media. They also do not address any controversy plaguing in the media. Kris Jenner is instead forcing interested viewers to watch the show if they want to find out what is going on in the Kardashian’s life. The first time I noticed this trick was with Kylie’s lips. All of 2014 one could not pass a newsstand without seeing an article surrounding the rumors about Kylie’s lips. It was not hard to look at an early picture of the famous youngest sister and see a noticeable difference in the size of her lips. The press hounded Kylie, asking her if she had gotten work done on them; she declined answering time and time again. She would give comments such as, “How long are we going to talk about this lip thing.” She shared that the only thing she was doing to enhance her lips were the technique of overlining one’s lips, but something still did not seem right. Almost a year later, in an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians aired titled “Lip Service.” This episode finally had what fans had been waiting all season to hear, Kylie admitting to getting lip injections. I started to wonder why she waited until the last episode to air to confirm rumors instead of getting the press off her back earlier that year. I came to the conclusion that it was all genius Kris Jenner’s marketing strategy for manipulating the media.
The most recent example of this is currently ongoing with three sisters pregnant. Currently it is reported that sisters Kim, Khloe, and Kylie are pregnant but only Kim has confirmed hers through, of course, an episode of their show! Now the fans are waiting and waiting for Khloe and Kylie to talk about the humans currently growing inside their stomachs! But all of us dedicated fans have grown familiar with the way things work in the Kardashian family, and know that if we want it confirmed, we just have to watch the show.
When I first started to see the Kardashians like this, I wanted to present my points to someone smart and who I respected. My Dad is a West Point Military School grad, a retired U.S Army soldier, and a Harvard Business School Graduate, it wasn’t hard for me to decide to talk to him. This is also a man that despises this family. I don’t know if you could find a more Anti-Kardashian person. After giving him my thesis and points, he went silent. After a few seconds of silence he said “that explains so much”. I’m not trying to persuade anyone to love and worship the family, I just want to present my theory that everything the Kardashians do is meticulously planned.