Harry and Meghan: A Masterclass in Brand Positioning
(First published March 2021)
I was one of the 12.4 million. Breaking the trend among my fellow millennials, if the marketing gurus over on Clubhouse are to be believed, and settling in for an evening of linear TV viewing, ads and all.
In the run-up to Harry and Meghan’s now-infamous interview with Oprah Winfrey, the extent of my concern for the couple’s personal affairs was at a level normally reserved for the comings and goings of the latest runner-up of Love Island. Not a huge amount has changed since, but I am now certainly interested. Not necessarily in the individuals, but in the interview’s impact on the Sussexes as a commercial entity. The couple’s current status is clear. They have in no uncertain terms cut, some might say hacked, themselves off from ‘The Firm’ and are now faced with making their own way in the world and, indeed, making a living.
Of course, it’s not as if they spent the past year wandering aimlessly through post-royal life waiting for the phone to ring. Within 12 months of their departure they had penned a hefty Netflix deal, followed recently by one with Spotify. However, the success of these endeavours would greatly depend on that most valuable of assets: their brand. And, despite their existing notoriety, without the strength of the globally recognised House of Windsor behind them, long-term success in this area would not be without its challenges. Decisions, therefore, had to be made. What would they stand for in their post-royal life; who would they become; and how would they keep their audiences coming back? A key question then was, what would their brand positioning be.
One of the first aspects to consider would be their relationship with the Windsors. On the one hand, they could have gone quietly, maintaining a perception that there was no bad blood between them and the family that, like it or not, they were still a part of. Of course, families getting along rarely pique the interests of news desks. Then, there was the other option: play the attacking game; and amplify the very issues that, supposedly, drove them away in the first place. It takes neither a constitutional expert nor a PR guru to identify which way they went.
Secondly, as with any exercise in strategic brand planning, there was the consideration of their target audience. Whilst I highly doubt that the Sussexes are versed in the field of behavioural economics, it seems that confirmation bias among the public had already done much of their audience segmentation for them. Trying to appeal to the traditionalist, Daily Mail-reading royalists of the world for instance would have been a battle lost before it even began. The anti-royal, ardent republicans then would seem like a natural target — and many members of this group will certainly have enjoyed the royal-bashing that the interview yielded.
But what the couple actually appeared to achieve was much more impressive: swinging the opinions of the ‘on-the-fencers’ — the individuals who are mostly indifferent to the royals; who will happily join in with the national celebration when a royal wedding rolls around, but would hardly swoon at the prospect of Her Majesty unveiling a plaque in Huddersfield. In employing this strategy, they maximised mass-appeal and, in turn, achieved a larger potential audience — Byron Sharp must have been part of the pair’s bedtime reading it seems! And let’s not forget, making up a large proportion of this audience are, of course, the Americans — a nation of fair-weather royalists who are currently desperate, on the global stage at least, to claw back perceptions of empathy, compassion and fairness in a post-Trump world.
And this brings us to the pinnacle of brand-Sussex’s positioning strategy: tapping into the increasingly-present social justice narrative. In aligning themselves squarely with some of the top social issues of the day, they portrayed themselves as ‘the good guys’; the strong individuals who will stand up for what’s right and, as a result, set themselves up as beacons for virtue-signallers the world over.
Finally, in combining this directly with inflammatory claims against the House of Windsor, the Sussexes established a perception that they are in touch with the issues currently occupying the minds of the public, and that the royals are not. In doing so, they created their own competitor in the marketplace overnight, further enhancing their potential to win support for themselves. In the words of Mark Ritson: “Don’t just stand for something, stand against your competitors”. And as for the royals, their reputation will not have been left untainted by this, with any future actions of retaliation likely to be met with just a little more negativity than would have previously been the case — because of course, how could someone who rescued a few chickens possibly be accused of bullying?
To many marketers, all this may seem like a home run in brand purpose terms — but as Richard Shotton puts it: don’t assume that brand purpose will solve your marketing problems. Harry and Meghan would, therefore, do well to choose their next moves carefully if they wish to continue riding this wave in the long-term.
However, judging if nothing else by the sheer exposure that they have generated, it’s unlikely that any commercial endeavour in the near future will struggle to draw audiences or generate sales. As a couple who have previously been so vocal about the intrusion of the mass media, they certainly seem to be mastering the mantra ‘give the people what they want’!
