Talks about reconciliation 2

[bluegreygreen]

I've never started a thread here before, but I thought some people might be interested in this take on the story by a PR podcast I listened to yesterday (started listening to this podcast as I know very little about PR!).

It would be good to know if any of the resident PR people agree.

When It Hits The Fan: A Right Royal Whodunnit

I think the media coverage and the Sussexes' activity will ensure that they very much feature at some level in your average person's mind. I don't think it's just us here on the RF board.

I'm not sure I agree. They were huge news at the time of Mexit of course, and after the Oprah interview. But since then I think the level of general interest in them has faded quite a bit.

Taking myself as an example, I'm interested in the royals but there are periods when I take 'time out' and don't come on boards like this. At those times, I never hear about Harry and Meghan at all and have to play catch up when I come back here. So I think the 'average person' really doesn't hear much about them, and doesn't care either.

Oooh now I think about it, I do have something perhaps partially useful to say about As Ever. It's Meghan's terrible habit of aggressively overbranding everything. Every product has to be overbranded and overexplained to the nth degree e.g. I got this idea from selling clothes at a street market as a teen / I launched this jam because of this very involved anecdote about pleasing my friends with jam at Christmas / my children sell this pancake mix at a farmers market every weekend etc etc.

Everything is overexplained, as though she's frightened just to let the product exist out in the market and let people make up their own minds about it. Once a product is out there, the maker has no control over how it'll be received. But Meghan appears to be trying to engineer and control people's responses.

The psychological oddity of this aside, it's a real no-no in brand management theory. A good brand is launched with clear and engaging brand values, but it must also have the space and confidence to allow the consumer to engage with it on their own terms. Recent FMCG brands that have done this well are Tony's chocolate, Pasta Evangelists and Lucky Saint. Really flawless brand positioning: quirky, memorable yet brave enough to allow the consumer to overlay their own perspectives on them.

Meghan needs to hire a proper brand strategist.

I think she knows people will only buy or even look at her website because there might be some personal anecdote attached. The items in themselves are rubbish, and she knows it.

I agree 100% with this and if I was head of PR for BRF I would not be pitching my strategy anywhere near the depleted credibility and continually diminished numbers of SS / H&M supporters....instead I would (as they have done) pivoted 180 degrees and focused efforts and energies on the tangible positive activities at home and abroad of the BRF with causes and dignatories - not some unhinged conspiracy theorist keyboard warriors.

As MO always says 'when they go low, you go high' .... I think the BRF long game, 'never explain, never complain' approach works 99% of the time.

Dont dignify the chancers with a response. Stand well back and dont fuel their nonsense or get in the way of them making absolute tits of themselves.

You can even see it on here - they've all deserted the ship like rats. Think there is only one battling on through their own delusion in the face of evidence and facts.

Yes but personal anecdotes only work for brands if a) they're different, unique, heartwarming or quirky and b) if the creator has such an established air of mystique or charisma that any insight into their everyday life is rare and cherished. Meghan fits neither of these categories.

There's also the question of credibility. Taking her statements over the years at face value, we are led to surmise that Meghan, between the ages of 11 and 14, spent every weeknight after school with her father on the set of Married with Children, whilst simultaneously helping her mother shop fabrics for her weekend stall, whilst simultaneously going door to door with her friends selling girl scout cookies.

Not only would these packed evenings require Meghan to be possessed of the supernatural power of ubiquity (or at least the ability to bilocate), but they would also be in wild contravention of California State's child labour laws. Given such frenzied activity, it's a wonder she managed to find the time to change Unilever's North American marketing strategy by the power of her pen, or indeed to do any schoolwork at all, really.

Everything is overexplained, as though she's frightened just to let the product exist out in the market and let people make up their own minds about it

A decent product speaks for itself. These over exaggerated, long winded stories that accompany them is way too try hard and frankly I don't believe any of them.

It wasn’t the affair itself that was the main scandal though was it?

It was how a young, insecur woman of nineteen, twenty when she was married, was used by the institution of the monarchy to prolong its own existence. Diana was effectively used as a breeding machine. And she was at the mercy of a huge power imbalance.

People were also upset about how she was expected to put up and shut up in the face of her husband’s ongoing affair. And carry on the lie that all was well even after children came on the scene.

There was intolerable pressure on her if you think about it; the Buckingham Palace PR machine was spinning a very different story to what was happening in reality. And pressure was being brought to bear that she must not speak up and must tolerate an intolerable situation.

Those are the real values of the Royal
Family that everyone on here seems to respect so much! And they are hideous!

so are people not allowed to post? or is it only posters that tow the party line who are allowed.
surprise, nit every one thinks H&m are that bad and would like to see every one make up.

They had an arranged marriage. It’s just her family failed to tell her or protect her. She wanted to call it off and her sisters told her it was too late. The fault lies with her family.

That was 44 years ago, @BathOliversister2244 No woman marrying into the royal family has subsequently had this experience.
Certainly not Meghan.

Don’t be silly. Of course it wasn’t an arranged marriage.

Why is @NewAgeNewMe post silly? I would say it’s pretty much bang on.

I would also add that Diana was also a victim of her father who more or less sold her off to the RF. I also would like to know more about her DM's contribution to her life. I understand she 'left' an abusive marriage - possibly told she couldnt see her DCs.

This left the very young Diana very vulnerable to the powerful men around her. However she had many marital affairs herself - the first one when Harry was only 2 years old. Maybe what's good for the goose etc but she was not pure as the driven snow. She fell out with many of her friends and family who I would imagine were indulgent to her given her status. She parentified her own son with her poor emotional boundaries. It was a messy time and hurt people, hurt people.

It was reportedly organised by the grandmothers. They met 13 times I think before the engagement was announced.

True my BIL & SIL had met twice, my in-laws never, my parents 3 times. Me and dh were allowed to see each other weekly for 3 months before we had to decide.

My real point actually is that Diana said she wanted out and her sisters told her that it was too late. That’s on her family. Not the royals.

Good points, @NewAgeNewMe . It's fascinating when you see film of the time - Diana looks absolutely thrilled to bits and loving all the attention.

I can’t find the post where it was suggested Diana is being airbrushed out of history by the Royals but I suspect it’s not the case and that the only thing airbrushing her is the passing of time.

Meanwhile let’s get back to the subject of the thread!

I agree with this and we need to remember the press coverage in the summer before she died was not at all favourable. Nor was her consistently entitled behaviour of persuing (stalking/harassing in at least one case) married/attached men when she had herself presented herself to the world as a victim of this. Double standards and victimhood narrative.

Going back to the interest in Meghan - it had definitely waned. I am here for the entertainment value, but the Meghan show was soooo boring, I only watched one. And I could hardly be bothered to comment on those insipid As Ever products.

But THEN ta-da! Came the TWERKING - and even my totally uninterested dcs were saying, “Have you seen that?!” It catapaulted Meghan back into the general public eye via Instagram, not just via Daily Mail as the Fans like to bleat.

So I don’t think that Meghan will ever be content to fade into the mists of Montecito and live her best aesthetic life. No way will she tolerate Harry poncing back into royal occasions without her in tow.

Am I going crazy or has Harry done this before?

No way will she tolerate Harry poncing back into royal occasions without her in tow.

Not so sure.

This might be the perfect outcome for MM.

He does all the 'dreary' BRF stuff on the 'salty island' and in so doing boosts back up his royal credentials and then turns back up to Cali the Knight in Shining Armour where she can bask in this regal glow and protection reminding everyone she is still the scared ickle Princess / Damsel in Distress - in her delusional, grandiose and fabricated fantasy land.

Yes, I think you're right. It's really not good

Indeed. She was criticised as a Mum because her sons were at boarding school, then she hardly saw them over the summer break.

I remember when she snapped at the aid. She had an armful of flowers given by the crowd and the aid approached her to take them and put them with all of the others across the road. But Meghan being Meghan wasn’t having it because she’s special and was going to do the walk about her way, so she snapped at him. I can recall reading in the press later it was a security issue, that flowers are taken by the aids or handed over to them as quickly as possible just in case there’s something horrible hidden in the bouquet. Everyone else seemed to manage what they’d been told to do throughout that period but no, not Meghan who just had to be different.

Airbrushed?! As. If.
Really, some people are paranoid.