ARO thread 2

[OneHeartySnail]

To continue the discussion...

What next? What did the launch aim to achieve? Did it get the desired result?

Absolutely, the fact they earned it doesn’t mean they still have it, I think they are burning through it at a rate of knots, I estimated up thread they would be spending about 8 million a year, with costs, taxes, legal fees for Harry and security, I’m surprised if they have 48 left, inc house value, but it’s possible.

the point is though she doesn’t need Harry’s inheritance to back her venture, not yet.

i keep hoping she will launch a business, but the longer it goes on, the more unlikely it seems, and if she’s got no business and the launch was a mistake, it is a huge one.

on the same scale of mistake as Harry’s book or the Netflix series , which were massive mistakes.

there comes a point where you make so many mistakes you prove you’re a bit too thick for it.

In many ways the whole saga is confusing. So many opportunities squandered, relationships ruined, avenues closed. The successes are so pyrrhic (Spare). And I know it’s been posted here ad nauseam, but they still could lead a quietly luxurious life if they wished but they won’t, it has to be billionaire/IPP level. Which is nuts. And makes them very vulnerable, which they won’t be able to see.

I think they’ve really screwed up. I don’t feel at all sorry for them, but I feel very sorry for their kids. One day they will be reading those books and living with too
very immature and isolated parents. They won’t have other family to turn to either. Doria excepted.

Harry will inherit from Charles presumably and if the rumours are true, from the QM when he turns 40.

@Thatsthewayitisnt that's their problem, isn't it? Slagging off the family, yet relying on their money.

His inheritance is controlled by Anne isn't it? Hasnt it already been pushed back once?

He's had an inheritance from his mother and I'm guessing other family members. He will have had investments and no doubt resources available to him. Harry has been looked after. He has neither the wit nor the ability to make it independently, it would seem. Although he's made a packet from being a professional whinger.

on the same scale of mistake as Harry’s book or the Netflix series , which were massive mistakes.

At least Harry's mistakes made a huge wodge of money!

I think she's taken her business plan from the South Park gnomes:

I feel sad for them. I, like I think many ordinary UK people, were really happy for them when they married and very much wished them well, and I agree the press were pretty horrible once the initial 'honeymoon' period wore off BUT I was suspicious of Meghan with her ' I didn't know who he was' when her best friend from childhood says she was obsessed with princess Diana, and the lack of ANY friends of family form her side ... However, give them the benefit of the doubt ... But the whole shambles form 'No one asked if I was ok' to leaving to Spare and Netflix and her horrible sneering pretend curtsey ... ugh. But what I just cannot understand is how they can have wasted such amazing opportunity. They had everything, were so high profile - a real golden couple with health, wealth and a huge global potential ... to this...
Are they really honestly SO stupid they listened to no advice ?

@Strikestallulah I felt the same. I actually wanted to like her because it was clear it had taken H a while to find a woman willing to take that role on. The turning point for me was the interview in SA when she said no one had asked if she was okay. If you have ever visited or lived in a country with such deprivation as SA, you quickly learn how blessed you are and how trivial your own problems are.

Are they really honestly SO stupid they listened to no advice ?

I get the strong impression that they only "listen" to advice that they agree with in the first place. He's dim, and she's entitled. It won't make for a happy business venture.

Yep, no wonder they keep 'changing' PR, will bet PR'a run for the hills as they're so unpopular and getting worse!! I suspect they do very little they're told to do / ho hum!

I’m afraid I think Megan is not very clever either. I cannot see how anyone remotely clever could make the continual mistakes they make. And that isn’t just Harry it is her too.

I think they are both a bit dim and entitled, and that’s the fundamental issue. They don’t realise their own shortcomings or listen to advice, apparently they only listen to each other, so they keep making mistakes, and they don’t appear to have rhe capability of learning from their mistakes.

It's almost beyond belief that they're in this position now, jumping from one idea to the next with very little of substance to show for it - they had so much potential in terms of their name recognition, press interest etc.. I don't understand why Meghan didn't get her Instagram and blog up and going again, everyone was online more than usual during lockdown - she could have cultivated the image she seems to want now - a softer side, looking after her chickens, rescue dogs, volunteering, cooking etc. It wouldn't have prevented them also going after their big money deals like Netflix and Spotify, and it might have helped some of those things to stick better if their brand was less toxic. I guess they went for the quick money with the Oprah interview, Netflix series and Spare, but it's left them with nowhere to go and alienated so many potential fans. She could have written essays about mental health, racism, experiences with the press and all that without the sensationalism and throwing the royal family under the bus. They do talk about important issues (where did all the work they said they were going to do around improved parental leave in the USA go? That was actually a good idea!) but in such a manner that it all feels very whiney and self-involved, rather than trying to shine a spotlight to support others. They both, Harry especially, seem deeply unaware of their privilege which I think has been one of the worst things for their image.

Are they really honestly SO stupid they listened to no advice ?

They didn't listen to advice from the start. People advised Harry to take things slowly, people tried to advise Meghan about becoming a member of the RF.

(Though I can see Harry's point somewhat. He wanted children, so they couldn't afford to go too slowly, given Meghan's age.)

I think they have taken bad advice with regard to ARO. I set up a little online shop and my first web designer rushed through a landing page - without me giving it too much thought, just a basic idea - six months before I was ready to launch. His view would be that the landing page would generate clicks for the algorithm spiders (this was many years ago) and would generate interest, especially if I provided a sign up button for an email newsletter.

Six months later I had thought things through, decided to do it all completely different with a new business name and strategy. I found a new web designer who wasn’t so impetuous and went from strength to strength.

I think H&M have listened to the first guy and they published a holding page before they were ready and didn’t copyright the various names and all sorts of shit is happening now. Don’t be surprised if they relaunch in 6 months with a derivative of the name - American Riviera Olive Grove? - and have set everything in stone.

The agency she's used for her one page Wordpress website is called Article. She's used them before, for Archewell. They're based in Toronto.

Archewell is a Wordpress website as well. Lots of arty stuff, little actual content. No wonder they get on so well!

The Archewell Foundation | Show Up, Do Good.

Just digging around the roughly three pages on the Archewell Foundation website - does what Meghan is wearing here just seem wrong? A bit off?

ETA: It was a day for Parents. Full of word salad:

"Supporting families, in a purpose-driven movement for change to safeguard against online harms."

What is that photo?

It's at this event:

Supporting Parents | The Archewell Foundation

Does anyone else get an Ozark vibe from the Archewell website?

I think they have taken bad advice with regard to ARO.

They seem to have taken an awful lot of 'bad advice' over the past 4 years.

Maybe the problem is them?

@LadyWhineglass They can't go near the word "Olive". A commonly used derogatory term by their critics for the home in Montecito is "The Olive Garden" after the US restaurant chain, referring to the pseudo- Mediterranean style of their house.

That’s a bit mean. The whole of California is pseudo Mediterranean.

Um, no it isn't . Have you been to downtown LA, into the valley, Hollywood to reference just a tiny part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area? California is massive, bigger than Germany. They have snowy mountains, gritty and nasty urban areas, endless urban sprawl of identikit clapboard houses, San Franciscan deprivation and luxury, desert palm springs, acres and acres of brush and nothingness etc etc etc.

Olive Garden restaurants are like the TGI Friday franchise in that they're aimed at lower middle-class suburban families who don't want to be challenged on any front but like to think they're going out for a glamorous dinner on a Friday night. It counts as "foreign" food for them. They do things like bottomless pasta, bottomless breadsticks (which are actually delicious) etc. All very bland and neutral, entirely lacking in interest.

On the outside, like TGI Friday restaurants, they look identical....and exactly like H&M's house. Same stuck-on faux stone cladding, same nods towards rustic cobblestone pathways etc. The house will be an ersatz abomination of Tuscan architecture - but the gardens will be gorgeous. Mature and established planting, lush, balanced.