Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s PR strategy has been slammed by an expert as “knee-jerk” and a “catastrophic disaster”. PR guru Mark Borkowski has said that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new website is an attempt by them to “dump their failures” and restart.
The couple replaced their Archewell site with Sussex.com early this week, with the homepage reading ‘The Office of Prince Harry and Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’.
The new site is intended to be a ‘one-stop shop’ for their work, fueling rumours that the Sussexes are trying to breathe new life into their media careers.
Prince Harry is described on the site as a “humanitarian, military veteran, mental health advocate and environmental campaigner”. Meghan is called a “feminist and champion of human rights and gender equity”.
He told the Sun: “(Harry and Meghan) have been floundering for some time. There are a number of challenges they’ve had to face, primarily that their Netflix and Spotify contracts weren’t renewed. Then we saw messaging about them moving back to Hollywood which was telegraphing that they were available for business.
“Everything that they have done has always been a bit of a knee jerk, a bit desperate. It became a lunge for money, for revenge and to create clickbait. It doesn’t seem to suggest that there’s a coordinated strategy.
“If you look at the whole thing, from Oprah, right the way through to Harry’s appearance with James Corden, the book, the story-spinning, it’s just been a catastrophic disaster. Archewell just hasn’t connected, so many things haven’t worked so you refresh, you rebrand.
“And Sussex has all the royal connotations. They’re grabbing hold of royal patronage. It’s an attempt to dump the negativity and failure to restart.”
Brand and culture expert Nick Ede believes the couple are looking to create “an umbrella brand” to tie together their media work with their charity work to establish future deals, but using the Sussex name sends mixed messages.
“They are entitled to use the name as it belongs to them and linking back to Sussex Royal shows the work they have done in the past,” he said.
“But it does blur the lines between their past and present and doesn’t draw a line in the sand, but still uses their royal experiences as part of their present.
“It feels that it contradicts all of the things they have outlined in the past few years with the documentary and Spare and the Oprah interview.”
