annette b.
January 29th, 2010, 12:36 AM
http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=11012501074601536&ShowArticle_ID=11011512092779550
Issue #22.50 :: 12/16/2009 - 12/22/2009
Anna Benson Meant Business
Built Exercise Video Empire in Columbia
BY KEVIN FISHER
I didn’t know Anna Benson. To my knowledge, I never met her. But I was a very *** fan.
Gone too soon a few weeks ago at just 59, Anna Benson left a legacy — a business legacy — that always seemed to me to be underreported and underappreciated in Columbia.
Along with her sister Cynthia and former husband Mark Henriksezn, Anna Benson built a physical fitness empire that spread from Columbia across the nation and around the world.
In the process, The Firm workout videos — **** right here in Columbia and featuring local women — sold more than 100 million copies globally. Let that sink in.
While the price of the tapes and DVDs varied over the years, let’s say the average cost was $20. If your calculator has enough zeros to show it, that means sales have totaled $2 billion. That’s billion, with a b.
Did you know a $2 billion international business behemoth was launched in Five Points? Many people don’t, and I never understood why that was so.
Sadly, this continued even with Anna Benson’s passing. While The State did a section cover story on Benson following her death, it was the cover of the Life & Style section.
Don’t get me wrong; the story did a fine job of capturing Benson’s real and meaningful impact on women’s lives. Comments from devotees of The Firm (who proudly refer to themselves as Firm Believers) were both sincere and moving.
But where was the cover story of the Business section, in life or in death, about Anna Benson’s stunning business achievements? It should still be written, not just in The State, but in every business publication in South Carolina.
As someone fortunate enough to have been the subject of a Sunday Business cover story in The State (“Swimming with the *** Fish,” Aug. 29, 1999), I can tell you it’s a very good feeling to have your success celebrated, the data and dollars delineated, in your own city. Separate from her impact on women and her success beyond Columbia, I imagine Anna Benson would have enjoyed that business recognition in her hometown too.
And she certainly deserved it. Anna Benson was not only a pioneer in terms of female fitness (she popularized the mixing of aerobic training with weight lifting), she was also a pioneer in direct marketing. And again, this international business model and the results it delivered originated in a modest building on Harden Street.
An example of that impact occurred for me when I arrived in Chihuahua, Mexico, many years ago to meet up with some folks and set out on an adventure through the Copper Canyon and Sea of Cortez. As our group gathered in the bar of the hotel that evening, I looked up to see an infomercial for The Firm playing on television, the enthusiastic workout made even more so by the rapid-fire Spanish voiceover.
I proudly told the others that The Firm was a Columbia, S.C., enterprise, that those fit and fine ladies were real women in my hometown and that I’d even worked on a project with the one on the left side of the screen.
The idea that I knew exercise video models was subsequently ridiculed all the way up the Baja Peninsula, but I held to my story, insisting that both the business and the babes were products of Columbia (and I say “babes” with great respect for the effort those women and millions of others put into The Firm workouts).
After taking The Firm into the stratosphere of marketing through alliances with Time-Life and BMG, the Benson sisters and Henriksen eventually sold the business to an international conglomerate. Anna remained an iconic figure to millions of women and continued her groundbreaking work by producing a new line of videos aimed at older exercisers.
It is a sad irony that she did not live to become one of those older exercisers. But Anna Benson’s legacy, in the worlds of both fitness and business, lives on.
Fisher is president of Fisher Communications, a Columbia advertising and public relations firm. He is active in local issues involving the arts, conservation, business and politics. Let us know what you think: Email editor@free-times.com.
Issue #22.50 :: 12/16/2009 - 12/22/2009
Anna Benson Meant Business
Built Exercise Video Empire in Columbia
BY KEVIN FISHER
I didn’t know Anna Benson. To my knowledge, I never met her. But I was a very *** fan.
Gone too soon a few weeks ago at just 59, Anna Benson left a legacy — a business legacy — that always seemed to me to be underreported and underappreciated in Columbia.
Along with her sister Cynthia and former husband Mark Henriksezn, Anna Benson built a physical fitness empire that spread from Columbia across the nation and around the world.
In the process, The Firm workout videos — **** right here in Columbia and featuring local women — sold more than 100 million copies globally. Let that sink in.
While the price of the tapes and DVDs varied over the years, let’s say the average cost was $20. If your calculator has enough zeros to show it, that means sales have totaled $2 billion. That’s billion, with a b.
Did you know a $2 billion international business behemoth was launched in Five Points? Many people don’t, and I never understood why that was so.
Sadly, this continued even with Anna Benson’s passing. While The State did a section cover story on Benson following her death, it was the cover of the Life & Style section.
Don’t get me wrong; the story did a fine job of capturing Benson’s real and meaningful impact on women’s lives. Comments from devotees of The Firm (who proudly refer to themselves as Firm Believers) were both sincere and moving.
But where was the cover story of the Business section, in life or in death, about Anna Benson’s stunning business achievements? It should still be written, not just in The State, but in every business publication in South Carolina.
As someone fortunate enough to have been the subject of a Sunday Business cover story in The State (“Swimming with the *** Fish,” Aug. 29, 1999), I can tell you it’s a very good feeling to have your success celebrated, the data and dollars delineated, in your own city. Separate from her impact on women and her success beyond Columbia, I imagine Anna Benson would have enjoyed that business recognition in her hometown too.
And she certainly deserved it. Anna Benson was not only a pioneer in terms of female fitness (she popularized the mixing of aerobic training with weight lifting), she was also a pioneer in direct marketing. And again, this international business model and the results it delivered originated in a modest building on Harden Street.
An example of that impact occurred for me when I arrived in Chihuahua, Mexico, many years ago to meet up with some folks and set out on an adventure through the Copper Canyon and Sea of Cortez. As our group gathered in the bar of the hotel that evening, I looked up to see an infomercial for The Firm playing on television, the enthusiastic workout made even more so by the rapid-fire Spanish voiceover.
I proudly told the others that The Firm was a Columbia, S.C., enterprise, that those fit and fine ladies were real women in my hometown and that I’d even worked on a project with the one on the left side of the screen.
The idea that I knew exercise video models was subsequently ridiculed all the way up the Baja Peninsula, but I held to my story, insisting that both the business and the babes were products of Columbia (and I say “babes” with great respect for the effort those women and millions of others put into The Firm workouts).
After taking The Firm into the stratosphere of marketing through alliances with Time-Life and BMG, the Benson sisters and Henriksen eventually sold the business to an international conglomerate. Anna remained an iconic figure to millions of women and continued her groundbreaking work by producing a new line of videos aimed at older exercisers.
It is a sad irony that she did not live to become one of those older exercisers. But Anna Benson’s legacy, in the worlds of both fitness and business, lives on.
Fisher is president of Fisher Communications, a Columbia advertising and public relations firm. He is active in local issues involving the arts, conservation, business and politics. Let us know what you think: Email editor@free-times.com.