PR disasters (IYKYK) thread 5

[AtIusvue]

For Meghan and Harry, As ever and Archewell posts.

It’s supposed to look arty/stylish but I think it would have looked better if she’d did 6 spoons alternating round the plate with the jam pointing to the middle.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/2178171/meghan-markle-as-ever-future-plans/amp

“An As Ever source told the Daily Express: “It’s still early days for As Ever, but the trajectory so far gives us confidence in the long-term potential if we continue to build it in the right way.

“We remain focused on growing the brand carefully and sustainably, while listening closely to the community that has shown such enthusiasm for it.”

This is after the website hits have been assessed and that there’s only 1/3 that are American users.

It’s hardly a glowing account of where the business is at, is it? : ‘still early days’ …….‘so far’……’gives confidence’ ……’potential’ …….’IF we build in right way’

These are words indicating they aren’t making money right now (not many businesses do in the first year) and may not even achieve that in the future.

I really don’t think Meg would be happy with that As ever source…..where’s the bloody ‘joy’!
It’s a bit downbeat and trying to temper expectations.

She needed to thicken the runny jam or freeze in pretty ice-cub trays perhaps (dd2 has an icecube tray that is tiny roses) .... rather than just plonk jam on the spoons that runs onto the plate. Is this a sign she can no longer afford anyone (even students or interns) to do her marketing shoots?

Disappointed that there are no flower sprinkles and the spoons need polishing

Perhaps she only borrowed stole 5?

@Lunde I won’t be party to someone being called a thief.

Honestly I don’t think she can be making a profit on this at all.

Based on her website traffic, average ecomm conversion rates and what we’ve seen evidence of ourselves in terms of sales rates, I ran some quick estimates.

Assuming a 1.5% CVR on 75k US traffic a month gives you 1,150 orders.

Assume an aov of $48, her revenue a month would be around 54k.

Then deduct half for cost of goods, assume fulfilment / snow commerce costs at $10 per order, take 3% for payment processing, that only leaves 14k a month out of which she has to pay her team, website hosting costs, email marketing software, PR fees etc.

clearly she’s doing marketing “on the cheap” but even if she only has one person running As Ever for her, she’s likely to be making a loss. Even if you doubled your assumptions on conversion, order value or traffic, it barely gets into the black.

The sales value of her stock in Jan was $21m!!!!

I thought she has to keep stuff otherwise people will use her name to Ebay them? 🙄I'm pretty sure this was what she argued for not returning the borrowed green gown from a Variety photoshoot that later turned up a few years later in the As Ever Christmas marketing - allegedly 😉

Can you link to get official sales figures?

That 21M figure was based on a comment she made in an interview that she considered ordering 1M jars (never said she did order that volume), and on the glitch on the website which showed unsold stock. It was also based that she produced 1M jars of each version of jam, honey etc.

If that was her sales figures she would have released them officially and provided proof.

The stories surrounding As ever's sales very much remind me of Michelle Money and her bra company.

PH on videolink to Berlin for Travalyst https://archive.is/u7O8p

There’s not many people there.

It was quoted in the link that someone posted below. It was calculated when the website accidentally revealed her stock levels a little while back.

God ! Could he not just shut up and lay low for five minutes? 🙄

So, an unnecessary flight to Amman, Jordan and back to California in what - three days? And here he is travelysting himself again.

He spendin’ most his life
Livin’ in a grifter’s paradise

Not many people - looks like it has all the ambiance of the seminars at my Uni that were held in the bomb shelter. Perhaps this is Harry's next idea for post-conflict disaster tourism?

I've never been sure what Travalyst actually does other than put out press releases using buzz words such as sustainability and eco-tourism while the founder flies around the world on private jets.

Power and the money, money and the power
Minute after minute, hour after hour
Everybody's runnin', but half of them ain't lookin'
It's going on in the kitchen, but I don't know what's cookin'
They say I gotta learn, but nobody's here to teach me
If they can't understand it, how can they reach me?
I guess they can't, I guess they won't
I guess they front, that's why I know my life is out of luck, fool.

The 21 million figure was a retconned story to cover the website glitch - the website data and e-commerce says don’t back it up. If As Ever was achieving those sale rates, MM would have used her Bloomberg interview to announce that. Plus we’d be seeing bricks and mortar sales activity.

Is Harry still “ employed” by Better Up ?

Isn’t it $21m worth of stock unsold, not $21m worth of sales?
If the latter I’m sure MM would ensure that we all knew about it.

As a side note, "sales value of stock" is a really weird way of valuing things.

Your stock is what you've bought/made, but haven't sold yet. In financial accounts, it's valued at the amount it cost. Not the amount it might be sold for.

This is for obvious reasons - it might never be sold, or it might be sold for a different asking price. Stuff is only worth what people will pay for it.

I guess "sales value of stock" could be useful to someone outside the business who's trying to work out how many jars of jam etc remain unsold. But those jars of jam would almost certainly have a much lower real value in the financial accounts of the company, because they'll have been bought at a much lower price than they're being sold for. And if they go off, or are otherwise unsaleable, then their value is zero.

Over on X/Twitter - a lot of chatter about the fact that several accounts that deal in RF-related gossip have been suspended (I believe through mass reporting). This is being attributed to Montecito machinations.

Another account - one highly critical of Meghan - claims that Sunshine Sachs tried to buy their account off them but they refused.

Makes a good headline though. DM know what they're doing by praising the Sussexes. Apparently success/hyped numbers can be followed by the takedown later. It's all clicks to them.

Ooooh.

How the plot thickens … I wonder if I’ve got some time to waste today pimbling about on You Tube?

Many moons ago when I did my O level accounts we referred to ‘stock in hand’ and the amount was what had been paid for it by the company.

And you may have $21 millions worth of jam in stock, however you've added that up, but you can't pay your mortgage or your childcare provider or your fashion designer or your PR team in jam.