It seems every company is trying to get a piece of the Meghan and Harry action

THE frenzy surrounding Harry and Meghan’s visit brings some truly obtuse marketing attempts to link all sorts of products with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

UNLESS you have been in a severe week-long Netflix hole, you are probably across the fact that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are twirling around Australia on a royal tour.

It’s caused something of a media frenzy, so naturally anyone who works in PR or marketing is scratching their heads, trying to figure out how to get in on the royal action.

And it’s fair enough. Because the Harry and Meghan effect is very real. Minutes after she stepped out in a Karen Gee white dress this morning, the designer’s website crashed.

Nailing a selfie with a royal is our new national sport.

The good news is this hullabaloo brings us some truly tenuous and obtuse press releases, attempting to link all sorts of products with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

It’s only day one and we have already had two crackers.

The first came with this desperate media release headline: “Meghan Markle’s unlikely accessory that has sent Aussie stationery lovers into a frenzy.”

We clicked through, thinking maybe she had been papped wearing bulldog clips as earrings but alas, no.

To quote directly: “Naturally, one would expect the Duchess’s outfit to be the main talking point of the (Australian) arrival, yet her chic ensemble was quickly upstaged by the two purple folders clutched in her hand.

“Her unlikely accessory has sent stationery lovers into a frenzy, with the purple folder having almost sold out across Officeworks stores nationwide.”

Meghan Markle has a stationery moment at Sydney airport.

“Data from Officeworks shows that as of yesterday, sales of the general folder category have increased by 32 per cent and sales of the infamous Aqua Drops range have increased by 75 per cent.

“Now that Meghan’s pregnancy has officially been announced, the question Aussies are left asking is … can we buy the purple folders at Officeworks?”

The folders were also described as “the latest must have accessory to conceal a baby (or food!) bump”.

And while we originally had a giggle at this, it seems the joke is on us. The Google trends graph below shows people are genuinely wanting to buy purple bloody ringbinders to be like Meghan Markle.

This spike in Google searches for ‘purple folder’ is proof that we all need to get out more.

The second shot at the Tenuous Royal Link Title™ came from a biscuit company spruiking their ginger cookies because Harry has ginger hair. Do you see what they did there? Ginger.

Into the news.com.au offices strutted a chap who was supposed to be a Prince Harry lookalike. Only he looked like Prince Harry only if you stand 100 feet back and shut your eyes.

He also had eyes that looked directly through your soul, but everyone tried to look beyond that, because he came bearing cookies.

An overexcited news.com.au staffer and a chap who makes bank because he looks like Prince Harry. Sort of.

With the biscuits came a note reading “we know everyone wants a piece of Prince Harry this week so we’re giving you a taste with The Royal Ginger cookie brought to you from The Other Brother”.

Stop the world, we want to get off.

* And yes, we know that we gave both these companies exactly what they wanted by running this story mentioning their brands. But that guy had free cookies, what would you have done?

Originally published as It seems every company is trying to get a piece of the Meghan and Harry action