Rebrand, Restructure, Harry and Meghan 2025 version

[Thedom]

The Era of Joy didn't last long.

This is going to be interesting, it's going to be a full on PR onslaught for the next few months, and then we will have Harry launching his very own 'commercial project'.

Clearly an article straight from the Office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, giving an exclusive to the DM.

archive.is/ufM7K

I know there are reports that say how 'charming' Harry is, but based on what I've seen of him in interviews in the last 5-7 years and Spare, I think he appears to be the sort of man who can turn on the charm when it suits him, and there it ends. His core personality seems to emanate aspects of dishonesty, hostility and impulsiveness. I've seen him variously appear manipulative, deceitful, exploitative, harmful and selfish. It's unfortunate but it's right there in front of us, in plain sight.

He's also a massive enabler of his wife, of whom he has spoken as if she were a prize that reflects favourably on him. ('Look at me. Look what I got. Look what I found'.)

Totally agree @TheAutumnCrow . I remember the way he snapped at a reporter ( Rhiannon Mills?) when she asked an innocuous question.
With Meghan he claimed that William and Catherine were awestruck when he told them he was dating her . Seriously ?? Also that the other Royals were jealous because she did the job so much better .
It would be sad if it wasn’t so ridiculous.

I remember how he spoke to Rhiannon Mills - his true personality was caught on camera for everyone to see.

He was dazzled by his new romance.

The thing here is - who else would it be?

The only reason for a story like that to come out on the day of an important meeting is to undermine William. HMQ and Charles had no reason to do that.

And it’s so so dim. Half-in half-out was never a likely outcome, but if Harry was ever going to get any version of what he wanted, he needed to be trustworthy.

OMG the perfumes in the 80s!

Youth Dew, what a fantastic name! My first boyfriend's mother wore it. Sweet, sickly, very easily identified

Georgio Beverly Hills, I remember it being banned from restaurants, rightly so

Anais Anais was so popular! And wasn't positioned as cheap brand IIRC

Ewww at Shalimar, I think I can picture the bottle, it was brown or orange and thin necked with a bulb type bottom I think.

@JSMill - sorry if this has been explained - which was the Rhiannon Mills snapping at reporters episode ?

Yes. I am pretty sure that was in South Africa.

She asked a perfectly innocuous question about whatever engagement he was doing and he told her off in front of everyone, “come on Rhiannon, don’t behave like this” iirc. Like she was a child.

This is it
www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1948395/prince-harry-angry-four-word-outburst/amp

That was the trip where the person hired to replace Samantha Cohen, Meghan and Harry’s private secretary, quit halfway through.

And the 'nobody asks me how I am' interview.

Arthur Edwards, the veteran Royal press photographer has talked about how much Harry changed (at least publically) and I believe got into a spat with him at one point and told him he'd been taking pictures of him since he was born and expressed unhappiness with his attitude. AE was probably as close as any journo got to closeness with Diana (who noticed he was missing from the pack on a trip to ?Egypt and sent her own doctor to him when she was told he was ill)

My DH knew AE years ago and said he was very sound, famously pro Diana and the boys and extremely loyal. I don't know whether it was Harry's character coming out, the influence of Meghan or a bit of both that stirred up so much discord with the Press. Inclined to think the latter.

Thank you all.

I just think Harry has become completely unreasonable about the press - here abut the famous incident when he was encouraged to speak to the Press Corp at the back of the plane and refused to until the last minute - still in WRF at the time.https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/09/hes-very-tortured-prince-harrys-growing-anger-at-the-press

This is over 5 years ago on a royal tour. Well actually Harry - they are invited - because - Royal Tour. I don't know whether he is oblivious to the fact his mother used the press and forged some relationships , that the invited press are allowed to cover royal tours , or he is just obsessed with "the press practically murdered my mother". But I do think he's lost the plot on this. Diana had some intrusive press , of course as has Catherine and others. But W&H were largely left alone at school and University / army. He has a bee in his bonnet I think he should shake out. But he's used to being kow towed to and he doesn't strike me as a reflective person so I doubt he will change his ideas on the press ( apart from the ones who are nice to him)

The press fulfil a convenient role for Harry in being the villain he can blame the woes of both his mother and his wife on, thus being another way for him to link the two women. That doesn't mean the press have never done anything wrong. But this is how he wants to see them and what feeds his view of the world and of the crusade he sees as being the focus of his life. It would be far healthier to truly move on, but he doesn't want to. I can't see that changing without a strong influence in his life that would push for it. That's not what Meghan will do. I do think a genuinely good therapist could perhaps prompt a shift, but he doesn't seem likely to seek one out anytime soon.

I also think that Harry has been told over the years of different techniques of dealing with media attention. Techniques that all prominent people, big companies, political parties etc use - smoozing the different parts of the media, dropping bad news on busy news days, offering an exclusive for something to make another story go away.

They probably did this for his benefit for many years but his take away is that it's some sort of secret royal power instead of commonly used PR moves. I think he's quite paranoid and automatically assumes there's a conspiracy going on against him when it's often just coincidence.

So he mentions throwing parties for the press to manipulate the news agenda - but most big organisations and companies etc do annual press meet and greets.

The journalist go for the free food and drink and the chance to network and make contacts but a few sandwiches and a glass of wine doesn't stop them printing a great news story if they get it.

In court most of the things printed about him that he claimed must come from 'hacking' it was pointed out was just news papers reprinting things that came from official press releases or repeating other news articles which were already in the public eye.

What gets me about these two is that they think they’re entitled to make tens of millions of pounds just by turning up to stuff, and that they’re wholly above any kind of scrutiny at all.

Scrutiny like… are they telling the truth, do they have anything talents to share, are they interesting, have they achieved anything meaningful in their life, do they have anything worth buying?

Scrutiny from which the answer to most of the above would typically be no. Hence the reason they hate scrutiny, but still think they should be paid millions for just gracing us with their presence.

The rebrands are a joke, the two of them are a total laughing stock.

So Brooke Shields disclosing that she couldn't listen to the 33 year old dishwashing story from M, when they did a panel discussion together, so much so she claims she interrupted her to save the audience being tortured with this made up story for the gazillionth time.

Well I have said before - maybe a good idea for one of Meghan' verticals under her umbrella lifestyle / house brand would be unisex washing up liquid. She nailed it when she was a teenager 😂*

*Or indeed it was a class project , her father sent the latter and VF etc could not verify that Hillary Clinton , Glaxo said she "made a difference. " An alternative view from Meghan's , but recollections may vary.

I did.
My mother thought it was pronounced Anus Anus 😳😵‍💫

https://www.geo.tv/latest/607477-meghan-markle-taken-aback-as-brooke-shields-interrupts-panel-with-bold-comment

So it’s sounds as if As ever might be a time limited venture. We all know it’s was just an extension of the Netflix fandom merch- like the Bridgerton stuff ….but fancier and the WLM show was just infomercials. But sounds like Meg knows this isn’t a long term thing and she wants to create an actual business now. Not this shitty fan merch model. She uses the past tense when talking about As ever, she’s pausing the business, she knows how bad it looks not being able to restock, there looks like very little business planning was done. As usual, moving on from failure. Just like ARO…As ever doesn’t look like it’s going to last much longer.

From the article:

“She said of the April launch of As Ever goods including jam that a 'scarcity mentality at the beginning might be a hook for people', comparing it to 'a sneaker drop'.
But Meghan feared it might be 'annoying' for customers, adding: 'I don't want you to eat that jam once every six months. I want that to be on your shelf all the time.'
The Duchess said: 'So for me at the moment, with As Ever, it was great. We planned for a year we get and then everything sells out in 45 minutes.
'Yes, amazing, great news. Then what do you do? And then you say 'Ok, we planned as best as we could. Are we going to replenish and sell out again in an hour? Or is that annoying as a customer?
'I'm looking at it saying 'Just pause. That happened. Let's wait until we are completely stable and we have everything we need“

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14775523/Meghan-Markle-update-jam-restock-podcast.html

We planned for a year we get and then everything sells out in 45 minutes.
'Yes, amazing, great news. Then what do you do? And then you say 'Ok, we planned as best as we could. Are we going to replenish and sell out again in an hour? Or is that annoying as a customer?

Extraordinary. How on earth does she imagine other retailers manage to have a constant supply of their stock. Because - and it sounds this like this may be news to Meghan - they do.

But Meghan feared it might be 'annoying' for customers

Really? Why on earth would she think that? 😁

We planned for a year we get and then everything sells out in 45 minutes.
'Yes, amazing, great news. Then what do you do? And then you say 'Ok, we planned as best as we could.

Didn't she have anyone on board who knew anything about what they were doing?

And how was she proposing to make any money if that was intended to be a whole year's stock? What was the point of it all?

It’s just private label stuff anyway. The whole point in using these, is that this stuff is ready to go, so you can scale up very quickly. It makes no sense that she can’t restock until stable. It’s clearly a lie.