Meghan at glitzy launch party

[Twistybrancher]

Meghan in LA this week at some fancy launch party. Think these are her friends who own a high end salon.

The wavy hair has made a return, I’m guessing this is the new look she’s going for, for the rebrand. Jury is out out for that particular style- mid parting, flat waves. Thinks she suits a side part, with full waves. But hey!

Personally I like the paired down eye make up look. I always thought the heavy lashes and dark shadows were a bit much for royal duties (I feel Kates is far too heavy on the smokey eye too!)

But it sure does make her look different. I do think ita just make up and not surgery…but other posters are better at spotting these things.

Harry not there. They are her friends, so no real reason but when it’s a social event, doesn’t look great that they aren’t together….again

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14090659/Meghan-Markle-dances-friends-glamorous-launch-party-Los-Angeles-without-husband-Prince-Harry.html

@CoffeeCantata 🤣🤣🤣

So I had a bit of time today and had a poke around the Highbrow Hippie website with my professional specs on (with the caveat that I know PR but I'm NOT an expert in luxury FMCG/consumer health & beauty).

It's not an established luxury brand as I assumed. It's basically a salon with its own small product line. The website is very 2017, first gen Insta, navigability is OK but it would need work I think to bring it up to the standard luxury brands have now.

All opinions on personalities, morals or who said what to who, from a purely neutral perspective this is a pretty disappointing stepdown for Meghan from the kind of brand deals she was courting just four years ago (Dior, Netflix, Spotify etc). I don't fully understand it, as I think even despite controversy, her brand probably still has value. More value potentially than the joint brand with Harry. So I can't explain why she's doing something so niche and cottage.

Unless she's a 49% shareholder in Highbrow Hippie and it's about to be bought by Olaplex or GHD of course!

Overall I would say that Meghan's brand has been hopelessly muddled from the start and I'd be willing to bet she's never actually sat down and talked with a professional adviser about what she wanted her personal brand to be. Her personal brand has gone through several permutations, which taken together, create confusion:

• Strong, knowledgeable, well-connected feminist (in the RF)
• Serene earth mother, disappointed rather than angry (Oprah interview)
• Comedic Princess Diary outsider making amusing pratfalls amongst English snobs (Netflix docu)
• Highly traumatised victim, extremely vulnerable (Netflix docu)
• Super connected confident star, bezzie of Beyonce (Netflix docu)
• Cool SoCal crunchy influencer (Aro / Highbrow Hippie??)
• Bringer of social justice and righter of colonial wrongs (calling US senators, doing vids with Harry, Parents Network)

I'm not talking about her personality here (as Walt Whitman wrote, we are large, we contain multitudes). I'm talking about her personal brand. She needs to pick one whilst there's still time. She's not very convincing as serene earth mother or comic actress, social justice won't work in a post-Kamala world and while she still uses her title. I'd say she should go down the crunchy SoCal influencer route; it's a ridiculously overcrowded market but her name still just has that cut-through. A lot of the initial hits would be from curiosity though rather than committed buyers so those Aro products had better be damn good. And crucially, differentiated. If she can get that on the road and making money by this time next year, she could still be OK professionally, I think.

Great breakdown, I think she wants to go down the cooking/ lifestyle /tastemaker route like Martha Stewart, hence the Netflix show. Except she’s not known for that and I don’t think the Netflix show will have enough buy in from the general audience.

Her brand is indeed muddled. I’m a fan and will support her but why should others?

Great synopsis @GiveMeSpanakopita

They both appear to be desperate to recuperate some of their pre Oprah clout.

Harry is trying to get back to doing what he did as a working member of the RF and Meghan is back to doing what she did before meeting Harry and becoming famous thanks to Harry marrying her

Who would ever have thought their trajectory would have taken such downward turn.

It’d be a complete downward turn if the rest of their Archewell productions flop (likely) or ARO goes nowhere, I refuse to give up 😭

Good analysis @GiveMeSpanakopita

I thought that this initiative fits in with her "investing in small brands to support female entrepreneurs" angle, alongside the handbags and the coffee.

I wonder if ARO will bring together what currently looks like a fairly scattergun approach so far? Any word on when that might emerge? IIRC, the last said (indirectly through "friends") was early 2025?

2025 is also the year when podcasts should resume on their new platform, and during which the current Netflix deal expires. I'd rather thought 2024 was the year she/they needed to show success to keep their commercial interests viable, but it looks as if there might be up to about 9 months of 2025 when it's still all to play for (Netflix expires in Sept, which is why I think 9 months)

Excellent post @GiveMeSpanakopita 👏

I believe we’ll see all her investment brands advertised or sold under ARO - affiliate links at least, plus her own products. It’s a no brainier.

@OneTealSloth the challenge with that is that the US cookery show market is enormously fragmented and regionalised, there are so many niches you have everything from Snoop Dogg to Man vs Food to regional BBQ versions of UK's Bake-Off. The holistic approach of a Martha Stewart no longer exists. If Meghan started a cookery show 5 years ago I'd say Cali clean eating/organic/vegan might have legs but in California it's all about keto and biohacking now. I'm not sure she'd suit this, well mybe she could but she'd have to completely change her body: basically, she'd have to get super-ripped.

@jouxlake no as far as I can see Harry is not trying to return to RF type brand, he just got a neck tattoo done by a rapper, and it's going decently viral (although far from breaking the internet). I think his brand might be torn between RF and slapstick comedy, I don't understand it. It (and he) seem a bit erratic tbh.

@WinnieTheW0rm investing in female entrepreneurs is fine but audiences have short memories and there needs to be a through-line, which is lacking at present. If I were advising her I'd suggest she do something meaningful to her - investing in sustainable products, investing only in Women of Colour, investing only in working class woman, whatever. She needs the through-line and she needs a website explaining her investment strategy and the values she invests by.

Mind you, @GiveMeSpanakopita, that 'Beyoncé just texted' scene in the Netflix series was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

It wouldn't have been out of place in W1A or Twenty Twelve with a David Tennant voiceover.

There is a comedy goldmine there, albeit unintentional.

@GiveMeSpanakopita . that's true too.

Beyonce and Blake Lively recently launched hair care products, even with their massive brand names and millions of fans, neither of them seem to be taking the haircare world by storm.

Blake Lively’s launch had unfortunate timing with that movie PR backlash but she may well pick up later, Ryan is supposed to be good at marketing.

Beyonce has never had much success with business or branding outside of music. It’s the likes of Serena, Rihanna, Hailey Bieber making waves.

Beyoncé seems like she’s wearing really expensive wigs most of the time though? wonder why she thought a haircare line was a good idea.

Yes, I agree that the comedy gasping and Harry's hammy acting were awkward af, but my point was more that their celebrity at the time was at such a zenith that the idea of a text from Bey wasn't at all far-fetched.

On Beyonce: Ivy Park is actually good stuff. I think there was scope to grow that, rather than branch out.

@GiveMeSpanakopita - on MM: agree very much that she needs a stronger unifying theme. That's why I was wondering if ARO could somehow tie them in to something coherent (not just sell them)

Hmmm I dunno about that. Riviera Orchard says to me all natural, organic, freshly grown, free, wild, informal. It says bare feet, wafty dresses in natural fibres, artfully lit sun drenched shots of Meghan's hand carressing a bush of fresh berries.

Hard to tie coffee and hair dye into that. Unless you're a marketing guru with the honed instinct and genius of a David Ogilvy or a Helen Lansdowne. Which Meghan, as far as I can see, is not.

I wonder if the problems with registering ARO might turn out to be a blessing in disguise for her. It was really clunky and now Meghan can pick something that reflects her rather than where she lives. I'm in no way going to be her target market but I wish her well. I think some personal success will be really encouraging for her.

I see it slightly differently. Not a downward turn but a slight step aside while they focus on their very young children. Perfectly normal and healthy if you ask me.

The same children that they leave for weeks at a time ?

So basically just like the Tig was - links to what other people are doing.

@Itsjustalittlebitfunny555 - we’d all be in a fine mess if everyone did a “step aside” whilst they had young children rather than earning a living.

And as mylovelygreendress observes, having young children has never stopped them before - Netflix, Spotify, book deals, foreign tours… what were all those then?

The fact is the pair of them are the kiss of death to any product or enterprise. Harry is just about hanging on to Invictus, because even that connection was nearly severed owing to making it the Meghan fashion show and that horrendously embarrassing marching incident.

I have heard that the Invictus link hasn't recovered since H&M wanted them to pay for hotels for them both and clothing allowance for Meghan for their attendance at the last games. My understanding is that Harry needs to do some serious bridge-building there.

Where is the proof of Harry and Meghan wanting them to pay for attendance, please let it not be from those deranged Twitter accounts. Invictus themselves have rubbished those claims via email. It’s a very very ugly lie to tell.

Meghan and Harry’s main issue is how badly do they need to generate money?

If money isn’t an issue (the royal family model) then you can focus on the issues you care about.

If you have to be able to produce a certain amount of money for your efforts then you either have to get lucky that something you are really into makes money, or you’ve got to be great a faking an interest in the stuff that does make money.

Someone mentioned Ryan Reynolds earlier - he’s a great example of this.

He’s clearly not driven by a need to be seen as a great actor of the Oscar winning category or ‘theatre is my first love’ types. He works like the devil churning out movie projects but he sticks to good quality light comedic / action stuff that he’s good at and are good financial choices for him. You can tell when he’s doing the movies which pay the school fees vs the passion projects like Deadpool where he’s getting a percentage of the box office too.

And then he has his side hustles from the projects he clearly loves - buying Wrexham football club to businesses that he simply wants to make money with such as Mint Mobile.

But he’s very good at making it look as though he’s thrilled about mobile phone contracts, or the gin company he owns.

He couldn’t do any of this if he also wanted people to think of him as the next Alex Guinness or Anthony Hopkins.

Meghan seems to want to be or to be seen as too many conflicting things. She’s got to let go of some of the identities to be able to make a success of one of them.

That new Polo show is giving reality TV vibes, they can get away with it if it does good numbers. Better than a boring documentary I guess