PR disasters continued. Thread 6

[AtIusvue]

For all PR disasters of Meg and Papa Sussex

It’s complete bull.

They would have to be selling 1000s of jars a day to get to that figure. I seen for myself when there was a glitch on the website, that they were shifting two digit figures on the most popular items and low single digits in the rest, in a 24hr period.

Sales figures Iike that in its launch year would get make As Ever a hotter than hot topic for all the market research and intelligence agencies who literally gather this data to sell to competitors (Mintel is a good, global, example of this kind of agency, that publishes a report on the sweet spreads market in the US each year - see link below - but there are plenty of others). If I was a journalist, I would probably be prepared to expense a copy of the 2025 report just to see if these figures stack up…(even if the sales figures are closely held, intelligence agencies will be able to see the dent in the market a new entrant of that purported scale would make).

https://store.mintel.com/report/us-nut-based-spreads-and-sweet-spreads-market-report

That photo is hilarious 😂. I don’t think any other celebrity is so blatant in their self-centeredness and limelight-hogging! In fact, I don’t think any civilian I have on my socials would dare do such a thing, it’s so stupid! I can just imagine the ribbing if someone stood in front of their friend/sibling/spouse/child at their event and posted “so proud of you” 😂😂. And it’s almost certainly to merch the Ralph Lauren dress. Every single thing she does is about money and attention - everything.

Oh Megs - never change!

She's practically climbing up that poor woman.

And NF would never walk away from a partnership that was selling those sort of numbers in their first year.

It’s annoying to me that this complete bullshit is getting reported like it’s fact.

Absolutely no chance is that remotely close to truth as you say @AtIusvue- I wish journalists would apply more critical thinking to this

I honestly didn't realise this wasn't just a picture of Meghan. You have to look twice to even spot the smaller, partially obscured figure in the background of the photo.

I'm interested in the physical process behind taking this photo. There you are in the wings, with an excellent view of your friend on the stage. You want a photo to post, to celebrate her moment. So you take a photo of her, right? WRONG. You find someone else, give them your phone, and get them to take a photo of your back. If there are bits of your friend visible round the edges of you, that's great. Now you have a photo to post to congratulate her! Hurrah!

I don't understand why there weren't more products though. Was this really all NF were ever going to release? I can't see why they ever invested in this as a business idea, it doesn't seem like it ever could have turned into a sustainable company with this product line-up. Maybe if she were Taylor Swift or something it could sell enough to make a profit, but she's not. And she wasn't when they invested. I can't see how they could have expected this to a success. Even if they thought it would be a nice companion to her TV show, they can't seriously have thought the show would carry on for long. How many series of her pretending to cook for random d-listers in someone else's kitchen did they really think they could sell?

Yes,

And going into consumable products with a limited shelf life too. If she had gone into homewares/linens/candles/fragrances reflecting an up-market cali lifestyle, which she communicated to viewers well on a show, it could have had legs. Stacey Solomon has done very well with her homeware collaboration,

Homewares would definitely have made much more sense, maybe with a few consumables as an add on, possibly limited edition. But at the very least just a vaguely cohesive collection; none of her items seem to go together, as seen by her weird gift sets. I confess I am not one for jam - or even fake jam - but I tend to think of it as something to be eaten in the daytime, possibly outside on a summer day. I don't associate it with candlelight. Or libraries. Or flower sprinkles. Or wine. Are there many people who want to sit in their library peering at books by candlelight whilst eating fake jam covered in bits of flowers? In fairness I think the wine would make sense in this scenario - it would be even odder sober. It's just this random jumble of disjointed crap, it's really bizarre to me that it was ever signed off.

She is so invasive with her friend. I can really see why Kate held back from this forced public intimacy. Her reported comment 'you don't know me well enough to talk about my hormones ' makes so much sense in this context.

Good on Catherine for not being too polite to set boundaries with people. After watching how M clung to that poor woman like a limpet, I do wonder if that’s what she wanted to do with Catherine.

well didn't the papers report that she wanted Kate and her to.arrive at Wimbledon holding hands ?

It’s celebrity besties 101 pose. It’s all image and no substance. I understand why Meghan must have it like muscle memory from all the hustle she had to do as an unknown actress when you are fighting for coverage.

That’s what made a lot of her Royal appearances so disconcerting because she was automatically angling towards cameras, posing for the best end result instead of ignoring the press and concentrating on the person or event being highlighted.

I think a lot of it was on auto pilot and it would have been hard to unlearn.

After watching how M clung to that poor woman like a limpet, I do wonder if that’s what she wanted to do with Catherine.

I worked in a team with someone like that. She wanted everyone to show she was their best friend and if they didn't - eg a few members had an evening out but didn't include everyone - it didn't matter that she wasn't the only one who didn't go, everyone was blacklisted.
She'd also give presents to make people feel obliged to her.
(Have to say, they were better than decanted pretzels)

It’s completely bizarre behaviour. I couldn’t think of another person over the age of five who behaves like this. Apart, perhaps from that creepy Pedro Pascal with his supposed red carpet anxiety. Should line the pair of them up together to see who backs off first.

Anyway I don’t have too much sympathy for her friend - she was, after all, subjected to similar last year, albeit lacking the pregnant tummy touching. She had such a pretty dress on last year and looked lovely but I don’t think there’s one picture of her standing alone. Why did she go back for more of the same? It’s inexplicable unless one considers that maybe that’s how they are together all the time 🤷‍♀️After all, Meghan did say she’s a hugger (and horrid standoffish Catherine is a cold 🐄).

DH occasionally tries to hold hands - I last about 30 seconds if it’s his birthday or our wedding anniversary before shaking myself free. I can’t stand it. Of course when the children were small it was different, a little child’s hand is a lovely thing to hold.

I don’t know how Harry can stand it - there are definitely clips of them together when he seems to be trying to break free.

Yes. That’s what I was thinking about.

No - there were plans for much more.

From the link upthread https://archive.ph/bQhst

It can be revealed that Netflix had a vision, which would have started with rose wine, and gone on through five phases including the introduction of china and glassware, then food, followed by an expansion into physical retail spaces, and finally a cookbook.

All of it was to be sold on the back of Meghan’s sophistication and elegance.

I hear that Netflix simply wasn’t able to interest Meghan in any of that. Her enthusiasm for business was genuine enough – she and Harry are well aware they need to make money – but she didn’t care to take the advice offered by the Netflix head of consumer products, Josh Simon.

M needs to find new investors for As Ever now that Netflix is gone so pushing fantasy numbers is quite the choice. But H&M's obvious falsehoods about their revenue numbers make them look quite stupid in front of investors.

Serious investors would have access to the latest industry sales reports and FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) industry analysts with a subspecialty on all spreads (peanut butter, cream cheese, preserves, etc.) can rattle the numbers off the top of their heads.

Moreover, journalists who mindlessly parrot H&M's numbers not only spread disinformation but also contribute to the erosion of faith in mainstream media outlets. (IMHO, the most egregious are the Times journalists who could call their FT (Financial Times) colleagues covering FMCG companies to easily sanity check H&M's numbers).

Silly woman. China and glassware would have made much more sense. You can think, ‘That food looks gopping, but look at the lovely plates!’ Instead we just had gopping spreads and UPF pancakes pushed at us.

It’s much easier to white-label foodstuffs, though.

If you find the footage of the four of them coming onstage from behind the curtain for the Fab Four interview. Catherine is fighting off The Claw as she emerges.

Ah - so yet another example of her being offered expert advice, and thinking she knows best. How has she still not noticed that every time she ignores the expert and does her own thing, everything collapses into a much-mocked pile of poo. I can imagine maybe sticking to your guns once, maybe twice if you have a really solid image of what you want to achieve - but she must be into double-digits now. If she had just sat down, shut up and done what she was told, she could have made an absolute fortune. Though admittedly maybe not with a product that needed to rely on "Meghan’s sophistication and elegance", unless the American's have extremely different ideas about such things than we do! It's so frustrating, anyone on earth would kill for the opportunities, investment and expertise she's been handed on a plate - and would manage to turn it into an extremely comfortable living. How does she keep getting it so, so wrong.

By the way - has anyone seen this? No idea of the veracity. I certainly would have expected more ticket sales if only to journalists and YouTubers. Though maybe it refers to confirmed sales, money in the bank rather than a booking?