PR Disasters Part X

[AtIusvue]

For all Meg and Harry PR shenanigans

Ah thank you for coming back @canklesmctacotits, your post really struck me and I did watch the first episode of Beef as a result, I got bored of it though. ( Loves series 1) I do think you may be right. Hollywood is massively bitchy and I really wouldn’t put it past the big players having a good old laugh at Meghan’s expense.

It is. I almost feel sorry for MM. But, when you're the head of an enormous organization like Netflix, with obligations and duties to shareholders, having worked your way to this position, with enormous visibility and tremendous influence and a precious reputation to protect, at the top of an organization employing thousands of people, in an industry where people literally sell themselves for the tiniest bit of visibility...he didn't need to do it. He could have just swatted her away or let it fizzle out, figuratively speaking. This took effort, and you have to wonder what would make someone like him take the time to do this. My thoughts are that he wanted to do this publicly because of her making various things public about him/his wife/the deal etc. The comment about not wanting to have a conversation with MM without a lawyer present wasn't, I think, about protecting himself from her. It was about how close she has sailed to breaching whatever contractual terms existed between Netflix and the Sussexes in the past and having legal right there in the room if she ever does so again so he can go after her. She thought she used them, and was in a position to do so because they bid so highly for her and Harry after Megxit. She thought she had the upper hand. I think she's learning just how brutal it is when, to coin a phrase familiar to her, the stakes are so high (for others).

It ran as a decades long partnership (unlimited liability) until it became a limited liability company in an unusual business move a couple of years or so before it folded leaving its creditors who had trusted the royal adjacency some £2m in the lurch.

There were previous questions over how it became a multi million pound business while selling essentially the same products in a crowded market as similar competitors declaring profits in the decent but low hundreds of thousands.

Those 'spouting' about how the subsequent administration process was followed (it was) are being a little disingenuous IMO.

The DM article is very damning. If they weren't so obnoxious, I could pity them. He's worse than she is IMO. He seems so angry and bitter. She would probably find some peace without him

Hmmm... a bit of a stretch.

It isn't unusual for a partnership to change to a limited company. Different structures have different advantages and disadvantages, and companies (and their founders) change over time.

Any creditors investing on the basis of 'royal adjacency' have only themselves to blame. Unless the Middletons were claiming that the RF would bail them out, of course. Is that what you think was happening?

What is your theory about it being more profitable than similar businesses? You imply that there is something shady? What do you think that was?

If you live by the sword you die by the sword. She’s playing games with much more powerful figures than herself . I don’t feel sorry for her at all. She has no empathy for others whatsoever.

Yeah that’s just horrible. It’s things like this that make me want to defend her.

😆 Haz, most people would turn you away...

I don't think it's a stretch to question the timing of events, the utilising of goodwill and how millions in profits could have arisen in the face of very similar competition turning far less profit when the most expensive product on your books retailed at £50.

If there's nothing to see I'm happy to bow to a concrete source confirming it.

Please feel free to start a thread about the Middletons, this one is about the Sussexes.

Haz, you’re always running here and there. You feel you’re not wanted anywhere….

I would also feel sorry for Meghan if the Netflix dress thing was an intentional set up to humiliate her.

Yes, she has been nasty about the Royal Family, in particular, but there's something about how terribly bad she is at PR, funnily enough (because of the thread title), that makes her a bit vulnerable as well (after all, people can be complicated) and that's why I'd end up feeling a little sorry for her if it was deliberate. Of course, we don't know it was deliberate, we're just speculating, but I'm glad I don't know anyone who would do that to me...

Well, you can't prove a negative.

I have always worked in the non profit sector, so those are the organisations I am familiar with. It's well understood that organisations (companies) have different life stages, and different structures are useful as they grow and develop.

Also that some simply out perform others with a similar aim and set up - they are better able to spot market gaps early and make the most of their strengths. I don't think success is, in itself, suspicious.

But anyway, back to the Sussexes...

I remember the company; wasn't it called Party Pieces?

It wasn't a crowded market back then.
There wasn't anything else that really rivalled it at that point - possibly the party store in two towns away which might have had a better range but you couldn't guarantee what was in stock at any one time. But even that was similarly priced but you had to go and fetch it.

I remember the excitement when we discovered it when dd1 was small, from recommendations.
Almost everyone who did a party round here seemed to use it because it wasn't ridiculously expensive and there was a good selection of choice and you could get everything in the same theme easily: table cloth, plates, napkins, party bags cups and maybe party hats too.
The delicious dilemma for your child as they teetered between the pink ballet theme, or the cats or maybe the Disney princesses! Or you could mix and match and have some from each.

It was fairly standard; you ordered what you wanted, the order came with a catalogue and you took it into school and passed it to whichever parent asked first - sometimes you had two or three parents hoping to get it.

No one cared who was head of the company, and I never saw adverts; simply word of mouth.

I think it's a bit of a stretch.

Ted Sarandos is a businessman. He's not going to go around offending people for the hell of it. And frankly, Meghan is simply not important enough to warrant that level of attention at that level.

Good point @IcedPurple. Also, we've seen H&M clapback at Netflix before and they haven't, about the dress, so...

Well, that's the world she wants to be part of. I don't understand it myself (not that it was ever on offer to me 😂).

I think you've nailed it with fairly standard.

I wouldn’t set out to upset a six year old boy. But I would consider it a kindness for him to have a chance to find out about his wider family and heritage. Who knows what they are told by their resentful parents. Seven is plenty old enough to find out your parents aren’t necessarily the font of all wisdom

You're quite right in principle, @ShamedBySiri, but given how H&M are seen to react to the least thing they don't like I wouldn't like to say how that would go down at home

I don't think we actually know what school Archie attends (?) but if the kids' experience drifted too far from what their parents want I wouldn't put it past them to homeschool - and them being raised with no other influence than that of their parents doesn't bear thinking about

I don' think for a moment Ted Sarandos would have taken the trouble to set M up with the colour of a dress. He was hosting a party & I suspect that both he and H&M have agreed that the parting of the ways will be portrayed as happy on both sides. He because frankly I suspect he just wants to exit the well publicised headline big number contract with his reputation intact , and M wants to show she still in with the in crowd. How the dress mix up happened I don't know but I very much doubt Sarandos would have spent time on trying to make her look foolish. I just don't believe that one.

It ran as a decades long partnership (unlimited liability) until it became a limited liability company in an unusual business move a couple of years or so before it folded leaving its creditors who had trusted the royal adjacency some £2m in the lurch.

And your qualifications for blithely declaring a perfectly normal business restructuring (ask any corporate lawyer) as “an unusual business move” are?

If you are approaching retirement age and want to sell your business as a going concern, as the Middletons did, the easiest way to do this is to restructure it as a company and sell its shares to the purchasers. Happens every single day to businesses across the world. It’s not remotely suspicious.

Also, the Middletons restructured it pre-Covid. So they would have had no idea that it was going to fold in the near future when they did so.

Since you are so fixated on the Middletons’ former business and feel the need to bring it up over multiple threads, why don’t you carry out your own research, and confirm your own insinuations in concrete terms.

I don’t feel one iota of pity for her if @canklesmctacotits musings are close to the truth, in fact I would be delighted if this was the case, for all the people she and Harry have bullied and whose mental health they have destroyed, the dreadful lies they have told, allowing their “squad” to bully Catherine in particular, I could go on and on with the disgusting way they have treated people, many of us “lunatics” on here have been exasperated that they never receive their comeuppance, so to hear these pair nasty bullies have had a dish served to them cold by Netflix, frankly it’s delicious.

Unlike you, I don't need to declare my qualifications.

But I do have a bridge to sell you 😛

If Sarandos did do that, she must have behaved so atrociously that she deserved it. I can't imagine why he - or anyone else who's not a 14 year old girl - would bother when just firing her, unfollowing her, not inviting her to parties etc says more than enough about how he regards her.