Speaking to US Weekly, Pauline Maclaran, a Professor of marketing & consumer research at Royal Holloway University explained how Meghan and Harry’s break from the royal family and establishment of their own commercial enterprises will have a long lasting and damaging impact on the Royal family. Ms Maclaran, who wrote Royal Fever: The British Monarchy in Consumer Culture, added how the Sussex’s have established their own brand with a heavy emphasis on “victimhood” which has a massive market in the USA. This brand, she says, massively challenges the established royal family brand as the California-based pair continue to roll out products from books to podcasts.
Discussing the book’s findings, Ms Maclaran said: “When we looked at the royal family as a brand we looked at all the difficulties of controlling the human brands within the royal family brand.
“So it has got to try and control all of its different members.
“And we see very clearly now how that goes array with Harry and Meghan’s departure and the breaking up of the Fab Four.”
Ms Maclaran added how this has “had a very powerful effect” on the Royal Family brand but she warned this competition “is going to go on”.
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She added how Meghan and Harry’s brand is “almost a competitive brand” and “their version of royalty”.
The consumer expert said: “They are taking that forward in the states and in a way challenging the royal family brand
“They are showing them au fait with contemporary times.
“They are showing up the royal family for their old fashioned ways, their much more traditional ways.”
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The professor stressed: “They have fairly successfully launched their brand as a kind of rebel royal brand.
“The underdog narrative that they put across is of course a very well trodden narrative that succeeds very much for brands in contemporary consumer culture.
“In setting themselves up in the way they have in the US, I think they are repeating that narrative in the way they are both blaming the royals in different ways.
“There is a sense of victimhood and that they have had to overcome these challenges.”
