Why Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Brand Sussex is under threat
They have been on a mission to dominate Hollywood since they quit royal life. But Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s empire is crumbling. Here’s why.
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They have been on a mission to become Hollywood power players and champions of the oppressed since they dramatically quit royal life for the US, plunging the monarchy into turmoil.
But the once-glittering empire of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, with its multimillion-dollar contracts and relentless publicity drive, is now in danger of crumbling and experts warn Brand Sussex is under real threat.
Just nine months ago, the seemingly unstoppable couple were riding high with the release of their Netflix tell-all series Harry & Meghan, part of a reported $152 million deal with the streaming giant. Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir Spare dominated social media and TV screens as the royal went on an unprecedented global publicity blitz, dishing the dirt on his traumatic childhood and his long-running feud with Prince William.
Fast forward to now, and it’s a very different reality.
Post-coronation, Prince Harry’s relationships with his father and brother are said to be non-existent and the only constant family presence in the couple’s lives is Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland.
The much-hyped Spare has been consigned to bookshop bargain tables and is said to be the most binned book in airports, according to British media reports.
The pair no longer have a permanent UK base after being evicted by King Charles from Frogmore Cottage.
And the Sussexes have been left reeling from the collapse and embarrassing fallout of their $30-million Spotify deal, which prompted an executive from the streaming giant to call them “grifters” in an expletive-laden rant.
Their latest move has seen Prince Harry and Meghan snap up the rights to film a best-selling novel for Netflix, marking a shift away from personal documentaries to fiction production.
It has now been reported that the streaming giant, not the Sussexes, paid $4.5 million for the filming rights with the couple’s massive contract now on a knife’s edge.
Their choice of text, author Carley Fortune’s romantic novel which features the death of a parent in a car crash, has been met with shock in some quarters, considering how Prince Harry’s own mother, Diana, was tragically killed.
Royal expert and Prince Harry biographer Angela Levin said: “Harry and Meghan are going to adapt a novel into a film which they will produce for Netflix that centres on a parent who died in a car crash. Each time you feel shocked by their behaviour they come up with something worse.”
There is also the question of how the pair will rebuild their flagging image and personal brand in light of their recent missteps. Royal author Tom Bower, who this week claimed that the alleged feud between the Sussexes and the Beckhams began in Sydney during the 2018 Australian royal tour because Meghan did not want the British power couple to hog the spotlight, said their image had taken a serious blow.
“The terrible truth Meghan and Harry ignore is that Brand Sussex, unlike Brand Beckham, is faltering” Bower wrote in The Sun.
Not even Meghan’s dazzling smile could hide the cringe-worthy body language in the pair’s most recent joint video appearance to announce a series of grants to fund online safety projects for young people through their Archewell Foundation.
Their lack of eye contact and general awkwardness around each other only served to fuel persistent rumours of marriage woes.
Australian PR expert Sharon Williams said in order for Brand Sussex to be rebuilt and restored to the pre-Megxit glory days, the couple needed to take a leaf out of Prince William and Catherine’s book and “do the work”.
The pair must ditch the self-congratulatory social media posts and the elite network schmoozing at awards galas and just get on with it, the Sydney-based branding expert said, emphasising that it’s never too late for reinvention.
“In any professional reputation, if you start getting a reputation for not delivering that and it fails, people start pulling away. And then you’ve got a lot of ground to make up,” Ms Williams said.
“Meghan has disappeared because she’s had some flak and she knows that she’s going to get roasted for anything she does right now.
“On the contrary, you’ve got the comparison of Prince William and his wife Catherine who are doing the work.
“They’re out there every day, not flouncing around at galas and premieres. They’re actually being seen to do the work.
“They’re out there with the community, working for all their charities. If I was Meghan’s personal brand strategist, I’d be saying ‘deliver’. Don’t over promise and just do something that’s positive and meaningful rather than talking about it.”
Ms Williams said the US market was forgiving of those who admitted they had make mistakes and the Sussexes still had potential to rebuild their brand.
“(Americans) don’t really care who you are. But if you’ve proven you can actually do something and you’re successful, they’re very accepting, which is why they’ve always been so accepting of the late Queen and the royal family, because they can see it’s hard work,” she said.
“I think they’ve got to stop putting childhood trauma on the map as a brand and they’ve got to move ahead with actually doing some physical work and getting out there and making a difference. And they if they did that, I think they would be a really positive force.”
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