Jade Goody was a woman who car-crashed her way into British public life largely by describing her vagina as a kebab.
She also described the Fens as “East Angular”, thought Cambridge was in London and frankly was never likely to trouble the bookers of Celebrity Mastermind.
However, by the time this very troubled but perennially optimistic Big Brother superstar died – from cancer at the age of just 27 – she had won the hearts of the British nation.
She had also massively helped raise awareness of women’s cancers in a way never equalled, before or since.
She had also made an estimated £8m largely from sales of her eponymous perfume. Not bad for the Essex-girl offspring of a drug addict and a pimp who’d been on minimum wage as a dental nurse when she was catapulted to fame.
So what made Jade work, both as a celebrity and as a brand?
Authenticity.
What you saw was what you got – she just wasn’t sharp enough or devious enough to come up with a fake narrative or a “brand strategy”.
And people love that.
Which brings me to Meghan Markle.
Meghan is a polar opposite of a Jade Goody.
Everything about her feels stage-managed. And in the case of the infamous “royals-are-racists” Oprah Winfrey interview it of course absolutely was.
She is about to launch a new brand of, well, tat.
The kind of stuff you find in pound shops – not that I’m denigrating pound shops, we’ve never needed them more – but you know the sort of thing it’s going to be… those sticks that stand in a bottle of smelly liquid, dreadfully scented candles with twee phrases on them, “throws” (whatever one of those is…).
Oh and jam.
And Meghan has just put out a breathy, selfie-style, bit of social, announcing yet another rebrand for this endeavour… hilariously describing Netflix (currently valued at $441bn) as “a partner in my business.”
If I’ve been following this correctly Meghan’s business was initially called “American Riviera Orchard”, then “With Love, Meghan”, and now, for the time being at least, “As Ever.”
And, as ever, she’s immediately run into trouble because, wouldn’t you just know it, there’s apparently a store in New York which already uses the name.
Seriously, does no-body do her legal due diligence? It’s spectacular.
Anyway, as if she is announcing peace in our time rather than some online tat store she says on Instagram: “I’m thrilled to introduce you to As Ever — a brand that I created and have poured my heart into. ‘As ever’ means ‘as it’s always been’ or some even say ‘in the same way as always’.”
And that bit, at least, she got right.
This is indeed same-way-as-always Meghan taking a pedestrian idea and imagining she will get to run with it because she is the wife of Prince Harry.
And of course, she will.
And at some point, perhaps under a brand name as yet to be specified, she will launch her project on us. But, and I hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but does anyone think it will last? Over-priced jam and yoga mats?
We just don’t love her enough.
My favourite bit of her Insta video by the way is when her eyes seem to literally light-up as she announces her new venture is a partnership with Netflix. Talk about an American backstop.
“What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” Runs the over-used social media stand-by… (which one could well see ending up on an As Ever candle!).
Surprisingly “make over-priced jars of jam” appears to be Meghan’s answer.
Each to their own I suppose and on balance serving up a pan of mixed fruit was always to be preferred to trying to overthrow the British Crown.
But there’s the rub; Meghan has made herself deeply unloved by the public by trying so very hard to get us to love her, in exactly the opposite way that Jade Goody made herself loved by just being herself.
And, as all marketing gurus know, positive sentiment does help attach us to a brand.
So not only is Jade’s perfume still going strong a decade and a half after her death, but I think it will still be going strong long after As Ever becomes a Netflix write-off.
