Meghan Markle and Prince Harry urgently need “to some runs on the board” after a series of flops which has seen their brand “go of a bit of cliff”, a royal expert has warned.
Daniela Elser was speaking after the Sussexes were described by as grifters” by Bill Simmons, Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and monetisation, after the streaming platform pulled the plug on Meghan’s £15million ($20million) Podcast deal.
In an op-ed for new.com.au, Ms Elser said: “After interviews, deals, podcasts, hours of painful TV, hundreds of pages and a few magazine cover stories, the Sussexes are far from anything resembling a straight-up success story. (More like a so-so story).
“The whiff of the dud has now firmly attached itself to the Sussexes, like a sort of entertainment industry BO which they very badly need to get rid of, and sharp-like.”
She continued: “I think we can all agree, Harry and Meghan very badly need a few runs on the board, a few clear-cut wins after the last little while that has seen their brand go off a bit of a cliff.
“In fact, things had been getting perilously close to ‘desperate’ territory, with us now coming up on the three-month mark of a succession of knocks and disasters.
“Their paying gigs, with Spotify and Netflix, have either gone or are reportedly set to go when they run out, which would leave them with only one content deal left with Penguin Random House.”
Referring to their latest video, during which they call the 26 funding recipients from the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund, of which the Archewell Foundation is a founding member, Mr Elser added: With no obvious path forward, what this week’s video (with its veritable buffet of new material for the ‘body language experts’ of Instagram to pore over like Talmudic scholars) and the upcoming mini-tour tells us is that Harry and Meghan are returning to safe, well-trodden royal ground.
“In the space of the 2.5-minute new video, the company has gotten an immeasurable boost after Meghan wore a sleeveless turtleneck and skirt from the label for her return to the spotlight. Given she can buy or access any and every designer on the planet, the duchess’ choice to support a local brand is a sweet note in all of this.”
