Backseat PR drivers: Just for fun how would you manage the Royal PR?

[wordler]

Light-hearted or serious suggestions - let's get all those bright ideas from us backseat drivers on the royal and ex royal communications output / and or what to do to improve their public images going forward. Or what not to do.

Pick a team or do them all:

Charles and Camilla

The Wales Fam

Harry and Meghan

The best of the rest - Edinburghs, Anne's clan

For the brave among you - The Yorks

Republicans, play along with your worst suggestions that you hope they will do to bring down the monarchy.

Am going to have a think but great thread suggestion @wordler

NB Lighhearted - Please please stop with the kilt/ tartan the moment you cross the border. It causes annoyance at best, offence at worst. Might as well be accompanied by a troupe of pipers, highland dancers and lackeys bearing shortbread and whisky to take full advantage of every cliche! 😁

Also you need fat knees / rugby player burly legs to wear a kilt well.

Similar to Evelyn only literal dressing in Ireland you don't need to wear green every day. We don't all run about in green like leprechauns.

Interesting! I have personally been hoping William would start wearing a kilt - purely for cultural reasons of course! 😉

But maybe that's why he's not doing it - too much like a costume he shouldn't be wearing?

It’s a little too patronising ‘dressing up to please the natives’ isn’t it?!

Wales family- get them to do some bloody work. OK Kate is off sick at the moment but William wasn't busy before either.

Also going to the food bank round the corner doesn't count. Needs to be the whole country not just stuff in Windsor and London.

The Edinburghs. We need to see/hear more of you. You are doing really good stuff, people like you, but you're so much in the background that it often isn't heard about (no criticism of motives here) Get BP on board to try to lift your profile a bit. It will help your causes and as its all hands to the pump at the moment, perhaps take a few higher profile things on if possible. Perhaps a documentary about the DoE award with a modern focus, and a separate one about what Sophies doing might help?

Also, Sophie, get down to that jewel vault and select a bloody decent tiara, with use of weapons if needed. You've earned it.

Charles and Camila:

Personally I think they are getting it just about right now - considering the history of their relationship that they have to battle with.

Charles leaning into 'Grandpa' of the nation is a good look for him - he also has a really nice speaking voice so I like it when he reads out significant national poems and prose.

Camilla seems to have thrived in her current patronages - she's tackling the hard stuff with domestic violence and also created something quite lovely with the book club project.

Warning: Camilla needs to be careful with her family 'benefiting' from the royal adjacency. I did a bit of an eye roll with her son's recent book launch (Cooking and the CROWN), and the light background sniping about how William has dispensed with her sister's design services for the Duchy wasn't a good look.

I think Charles and Camilla and the Waleses are doing a good job- feels as if they have a new PR team and are doing a better job of managing their comms, having realised that a dignified silence sadly doesn’t work in the SM era.

Harry and Meghan- the tricky thing with these two is that they seem to want conflicting things- to distance themselves from royalty but still trade off it- and that means setting themselves in opposition to the RF in order to generate interest. They can’t just live their lives and run their various projects. Comms always fail where they aren’t based on a clear underlying message. They need to establish the story they want to tell and the outcome they are aiming for before they can communicate that to others.

Yorks. Fuck knows. Get remarried and then go and live quietly somewhere.

I agree - I know that Catherine loves a bit of tour 'sweet nods' to the host country, but that Ireland tour they did a few years ago, she totally overdid the green items. It was green on green layered one day with shamrock earrings!

I don’t mind Charles in a kilt. He’s been wearing them when in Scotland his whole life. Agree William probably shouldn’t start. Maybe just for special occasions?

The Waleses I think are doing okay, but they need to be careful not to overdo the ‘we’re just like you, plebs’, as the only plebby frame of reference they seem to have is Cotswold hedge fund/hobby farmers. I know they can’t change who they are, but I’d like to see them balance grandeur with modernity - they are very ‘upmarket John Lewis’.

The senior Yorks I would get involved in some kind of unglamorous work with animal charities (retired racehorses perhaps), move to a MUCH smaller house, and say nothing for about ten years, then start talking about the charity work. Bit of a long game and entirely unsuited to their personalities. The junior Yorks are probably okay, as people don’t care about them much. I would advise them to keep their heads down and ensure that if they are wearing £££ clothes they look amazing (which Bea often does).

The Sussexes are a lost cause, as no matter what they spend on PR they don’t take advice and nearly everyone hates them. But I’d tell them to go away, keep quiet, and talk to a really good financial adviser.

Yorks. Sarah, Beatrice and Eugenie - honestly just carry on as you are. Beatrice and Eugenie in particular have come over as good sports for things like terrible hat choices, got married to rich guys and are getting on with life.

Andrew - leave York House for somewhere much much smaller. Disappear for at least 5 years. No photos out riding or anything like that. After 5 years let it come out that you have spent the last few years secretly volunteering full time for some sort of charity - must not be glam or connected with golf. Personally cleaning up sewage or something. Or teaching homeless people how to read.

Wales family - illness issue aside which I think is now being dealt with well in terms of communications - you've had the years of being able to devote time to family and other interests before getting the big job.

You are now in one of the big jobs, the heir cannot stay under the radar and coupled with your naturally high profile because of how media appealing you all are, you need to step up your communications strategy. And your media strategy also needs to evolve to counter more strongly the misinformation campaigns on social media.

It's clear to anyone who has worked with managers in big organisations that you do work outside of the public appearances (not including prep for those appearances) so you can't keep disappearing for months at a time on holidays. You don't have to do public appearances all year round but you should be using your different communication channels to highlight the work done by you and your foundations all year round.

How hard is it to schedule some social media posts - record a few videos ahead of time and drip them in over the summer hols. Take a trip with the kids to a local attraction or charity near Balmoral once a year.

And get George a Welsh tutor now - and then send him to that school in Wales for his A-levels that the Euro royals go to.

Add on for the Wales: start thinking now about what Charlotte and Louis are going to do. Yes I know the public love seeing Louis now while he's very cute. But look at what happened to Margaret, Andrew, Harry ... the issue of what the spare does is not going to go away.

Did KC wear a kilt at Gordonstoun? If he did, I'm not sure that people can get too upset. I don't remember seeing William in a kilt so hopefully he won't start. Catherine lay off the tartan and 'sweet nods'. I think it's bit trickier when visiting other countries where cultural dress might be welcomed.

I want to hear more about Sophie's and Camilla's work on women's issues. That's not PR though.

I think in general the Royal PR is good. I wouldn't mind a bit more of William's cousins attending Royal Garden parties. I think half in half out is not appropriate, but I think Zara, Peter, Bea and Eugenie are probably independently wealthy enough to rock up every once in a while for fun.

@wordler sending the Wales kids to that Welsh school is a masterstroke. Or one of the other international ones. Anywhere but Eton.

I think the Waleses need to be spending time in Wales again, not just going to Anmer and Balmoral when not in London. I think Charles has a cottage there already? Publicise it, do some work there and yyy, absolutely George at least needs to start learning Welsh @wordler. It won't be easy but they need to be seen to at least try.

Edited as warming to theme buy up a derelict biggish house and get local tradespeople involved in doing it up for the Walese's Wales base. Documentary showing how it's done, William Kates and kids around. Good publicity for local craftspeople too.

Atlantic College. Great idea.

Charles and Camilla - well when you think of the starting point, the PR has clearly been amazing.

However all of them need to be aware that if they are fussed about no half in half out, people like Camilla's relatives and the Tindalls should be more careful.

Kate's family had years of stories they were abusing their relationship to her for their business. Zara I think has got away with it for years - she would have no profile at all and minimal sponsorships if she wasn't Anne's child.

Kate could always wear clothes and jewellery designed in the country she's visiting rather than wearing green (or a shamrock, ffs).

I mean you can get it on DuoLingo at least!

Actually, I think it would be excellent for George to do Welsh as his main second language rather than diplomatic French, and also to have a basic grasp of British sign language. He's only 10 if he starts now he could be fluent by the time he is PoW.

And I second the planning for Charlotte and Louis which gives them a better and more grounded future than the previous spares. Charlotte has the main 'spare' dilemma - prepped enough just in case, but prepared for the alternative too.

Still thinking about Harry and Meghan. Maybe will have to be the same advice as Andrew - disappear, do whatever it takes to make up with Charles (I am assuming the relationship with William is a lost cause plus I don't actually like William either)

Stop accepting rewards. Can turn up and give out awards but it always needs to be about the recipient not them.

Harry needs a different therapist.

Am sure Harry is right about his litigation on phone hacking (and possibly some of the others) but needs to learn that sometimes being right isn't everything and doesn't make you happy.

Oi, Wills needs to wear a kilt, stop talking rubbish 🤭🤭🤭🤭 errrrr not sure about the cultural offence though 🫣

Yes, I agree with this. They get virtually no press coverage but seem to be doing genuinely good work,
particularly Sophie. She’s turned out to be a real asset.

'Never complain, never explain' is the best way of dealing with press clickbait, keep going with that.

The problem I have with offering PR advice is that the Royal family are unique in that they can afford to think in much longer timescales than nearly anyone else I can think of. Just look at those members who have been unpopular or made mistakes and then quietly worked away in the background and gradually changed the public perception. That's really hard to do for anyone else who doesn't have a position for life.

Having seen Harry make such a muck of his PR when away from the men in suits I suspect they are doing the best job they can in circumstances. I read Courtiers and it was fascinating, it's not perfect, there is infighting and it's very dependant on those in charge but somehow here they still all are.

Ok so my advice is, there is no such thing as perfection, don't expect it and you won't be disappointed.

And I'll once again recommend the When It Hits the Fan podcast on BBC sounds.