Helen Mirren Becomes L’Oreal UK Brand Ambassador

1. The always notably fabulous Helen Mirren joins Jane Fonda and Julianne Moore as brand ambassadors for L’Oreal Paris, appearing in an ad for the band’s anti-aging skincare called Age Perfect.

The Guardian reminds us that in the 1990’s, Isabella Rossellini was dropped from Lancome — or so she says — for being too old. Certainly women over 40 were generally invisible in major marketing 20 years ago.

Whether she’s acting, twerking or telling rowdy buskers to shut the fuck up, Helen Mirren is incredibly popular. She ruled the M&S Leading Ladies campaign, despite wearing a jaunty Per Una sailor’s cap. In L’Oréal’s press release announcing the hire, the company said it had surveyed almost 9,000 women and found the Oscar-winning star repeatedly ranked top as the woman who appealed most to consumers. Participants described Mirren as “genuine, intelligent and glamorous, with looks that seem only to improve with the passing of time”. And this down-to-earth, positive approach to ageing comes across in the 69-year-old’s comments about the L’Oréal gig: “I am not gorgeous, I never was, but I was always OK-looking and I’m keen to stay that way.”

“I hope I can inspire other women towards greater confidence by making the most of their natural good looks. We are all worth it!”

Beyonce’s Topshop Business Partnership

2. Beyoncé has entered into a formal, 50-50 business partnership with British retailer Topshop to produce an athletic streetwear brand.

“I could not think of a better partner as I continue to grow the Parkwood business. I have always loved Topshop for its fashion credentials and forward thinking,” Beyoncé said in a statement today. “Working with its development team to create and produce a technical and fashion-led collection is exciting, and I’m looking forward to participating in all aspects of this partnership.”

Philip Green, owner of Arcadia, parent to Topshop. stressed that this is not a celebrity collection but a bonafide, long-term business partnership.

BloombergBusinessweek writes that because Green doesn’t answer to shareholders, he could give the megastar what she wanted at the negotiating table.

3. We learned in September that Queen Bey’s 2013 surprise album drop is the subject of an upcoming case study by Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse.

For those who have somehow forgotten about the seminal news event of the past several years: Without any advance marketing, Beyoncé released a self-titled album of songs and videos at the stroke of midnight on December 13, 2013, effectively just leaving it on iTunes and walking away. When fans awoke to the stunning news, they found they could buy only the $15.99 album in full—sampling one song at a time was out of the question.

Harvard Business School students are studying Beyoncé’s business strategy in Anita Elberse’s “Strategic Marketing in Creative Industries” class in the month of October.

Elberse is professor of what the Boston Globe calls a ‘wildly popular’ class. Elberse’s students have previously studied Miami Heat’s forward James LeBron, Lady Gaga, Tom Cruise, and Radiohead.

She was a high-level soccer player in her native Netherlands before devoting herself to academics, with a focus on media and entertainment industry. “I’m an avid fan of movies, music, television, sports, video games,’’ Elberse said. “Media and entertainment has a huge impact on society in an economic, cultural, and even political sense. It’s the number one export product for the US. It creates an enormous amount of jobs in this country and around the world. But it also drives how we think and what kind of issues we think about.’’

2014 World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report

4. This year’s report contains few surprises. Nordic countries continue to dominate the top five places in the rankings. The bottom five countries for women are Yemen, Pakistan, Chad, Syria and Mali. The US ranks 20th, lagging behind poor nations like Nicaragua and Rwanda. We will dig in further.

The 10 Worst States for Women

5. 24/7 Wall evaluated women’s lives in terms of the gender wage gap; poverty rate; pct of women in state legislature; and infant mortality rate. The 10 worst states for American women are:

10. Kansas; 9.Alabama; 8. Indiana; 7. South Dakota; 6. Montana; 5. North Dakota; 4. Mississippi; 3. Idaho; 2. Wyoming; 1. Utah