In a modern American culture where healthy and rustic lifestyle choices hold a much more dominant place in consumer culture than they have in the last 20 years, websites such as goop and Preserve are filling valuable niches in today’s growing media and e-commerce markets. Preserve is headed by actress and mom-to-be Blake Lively, and goop is led by fellow superstar actress and mom Gwyneth Paltrow.

Each of these celebrity digital properties provides an array of content including recipes, products, designers, and more making them prime material for today’s high growth, content-focused social channels. Both have the ability to launch handmade and specialty brands or products from small businesses to instant virality, as well.

So what’s the secret behind these modern celebrities’ and female tech moguls’ success? 

goop; Gwyneth Paltrow

goop is a lifestyle brand founded by Gwyneth Paltrow in 2008. Initially, goop began as a weekly Thursday email newsletter for Gwyneth to share her recent experiences & tastes, and to gain further knowledge through a conversation about these with her readers. Today, in addition to the newsletter every Thursday, goop has expanded into a lifestyle empire with collaborating brands, designers, and many others creating a significant return on investment in e-commerce and other digital revenue sources primarily driven by strong media marketing.

In addition to the newsletter every Thursday, goop today has expanded into a lifestyle empire with collaborating brands, designers, and many others creating a significant return on investment in e-commerce and other digital revenue sources.

We value your trust above all things. Ultimately, we hope goop is an indispensable resource for all who love to make, go, get, do, be and see.

The content quality of goop is of some of the best caliber you’ll find on the web and social media within the greater lifestyle niche.

It’s informative and provides step-by-step information on a broad range of topics, including food, entertaining, city guides, spirituality, to relationships and shopping. Most recently, goop featured Moon Juice, a company Gwyneth raves as selling some of the best fresh pressed juices in the Los Angeles area. Some of this best recent work can be found in the goop post, “Sex Bark, Spirit Truffles & A Moon Juice Kitchen Takeover“.  This feature also includes tons of recipes that you can try at home, for Almond Milk, Beauty Milk, and a little chocolatey after-romantic-dinner-treat called Sex Bark, pictured below.

goop’s Pinterest page features guest Pinners, who are typically designers Gwyneth trusts and regularly works with, thus driving great referral analytics traffic. You can even connect with goop’s Spotify playlists. This kind of professional collaboration and unique content marketing will continue to provide goop and its investors with growing returns and opportunities for the brand as a whole well into 2015 and beyond.

The brand focuses on products that are clean, non-toxic and stylish. Content also focuses on integrative wellness, coupled with both food and lifestyle habits, in addition to sections dedicated to self-discovery, spirituality and relationships. These final aspects are what truly make goop an innovative media and technology brand.

 

Preserve; Blake Lively

Although similar to goop, Preserve maintains a number of unique differences that differentiate it as a more e-commerce centric revenue source for celebrity founder Blake Lively and her investors.

The brand’s mission is to preserve rustic American traditions through carefully crafted meals, home goods, relationships, style, culture, projects, celebrations, and personal wellness in an increasingly digital age.

“PRESERVE is all of us, together, championing the goods, makers and legends that instill meaning inside the moments of our lives.”

While Lively is the overt founder of the site, she is not presented as its focal point as Gwyneth is for goop. Except for occasional shots of the new entrepreneur on Preserve’s Instagram account and a great style content section called “Blake’s Closet,” a visitor may browse the website without ever making the celebrity connection. This makes Preserve feel like much less of a “celebrity brand” than goop.

Preserve also has an email newsletter and a continual flow of complimenting content to its curated product selection.

Recently, Preserve featured an article, “Tabletop to Bottom” that provides helpful and simple décor ideas to prepare for any type of dinner party or feast. Included are some great recipes for a heartier yet bright variety for winter, including a recipe for Stuffed Sweet Potatoes with Ricotta & Honey. An essential benefit of recipes on Preserve: each contains direct links to e-commerce locations where ingredients can be purchased at the bottom of the page.

Preserve’s Instagram account offers high quality, rustic photography, but also includes photos shared by users of their community using or wearing their Preserve purchases.

Comparing goop vs. Preserve

Unlike goop, Preserve’s content is updated on a slightly less frequent basis. This makes sense given that goop feels like a distinct media focused brand when compared to Preserve, a more e-commerce company. However, they both make expert use of content marketing in order to achieve their goals.

While Preserve openly states that it is a for-profit business, its Greater Good page outlines their firm set of philanthropic goals to which they contribute 5% of their profits during their first year in business. This differentiates it from goop. These goals include providing 5,000 U.S. children with meals, 2,000 with blankets, and 2,700 with warm hoodies.

To promote these distinct donation efforts, each purchase in the Taste section of their website works towards the meal goal. A purchase in the Style section contributes towards the clothing goal, and purchase in the Home section works towards the blanket goal. In addition, Preserve is partnered with Covenant House, an organization that aims to protect and serve homeless, trafficked and abused youth.

Both interact with their community and visitors via an email newsletter and various social media outlets and present their websites as more of a conversation starter rather than just a flat source of information or purchase point.

While goop focuses on clean and healthy living, Preserve focuses more on tradition and philanthropic efforts. Even still, both have accessed markets quickly growing in value, and investors, creatives, engineers, and entrepreneurs interested in the the innovation taking place here should take careful note.