How the Monarchy Got Branding All Wrong; Steve Sims

This is Steve Sims, and I want to talk to you today about the monarchy, the royal family of the UK and branding and how they are completely fucking it up at the moment. All right. Now before you get onto your high horse and go, “Well, I’m American, I’m French, I’m German. It doesn’t matter about the monarchy to me,” understand that it’s the most talked about subject in the planet at the moment. There’s alerts going all over the world, articles all about the Meghan and Harry interview with Oprah Winfrey over what was actually said during the period of time that they were part of the royal family.

They’ve now moved off to America and they’re now doing that live with Oprah Winfrey. See, here’s something that’s weird that you’ve first of all got to understand. Break it down to its essential of branding and think about the companies that have been around forever and really thought they had their shit together. Think of Toys”R”Us, Blockbuster, Kodak, Lord and Taylor, Neiman-Marcus, all of these major brands. Understand that Kodak invented the camera, then put it out of business. Kodak was the company that invented the digital camera. Think of Blockbuster. Blockbuster actually spoke with Netflix at the time regarding streaming, and went, “That’ll never fly.”

Think about the royal family. The royal family is an antiquated old powerless regime that is nothing more than a British tourist attraction. Now you can throw your toys out of the car if you really wish to, but it is a tourist attraction. It doesn’t have any ability to do anything else. I’m sure there’s some dusty little laws around there, but if the Queen came out and said, “Hey, we’re going to raise the speeding limit. We’re going to do this,” no one would pay attention because we have the parliament for that. The bottom line of it is the monarchy is an old, old, old brand, that through Meghan was given the opportunity, graced with the opportunity to modernize and reenergize itself. It already screwed the pooch with princess Diana, and now we had the chance of a young, multi-racial, international young woman, attractive, articulate. Everything was there. There wasn’t a box that this young lady didn’t tick that made this a win-win for the royal family.

And what did the royal family do? They do what they always do. They closed ranks. They shut up and they basically created a scenario where she went away. The downside is she hasn’t gone away now. She’s controlling the narrative, her and Harry. Her and a member of the family are actually talking out. They came over stateside, they went to Montecito just near Santa Barbara, and they now did the largest watched program revealing the royal family. Now the royal family already got hurt because there’s a program out there on Netflix called The Crown, that is based on true events. But based, yeah, I’m sure there’s some fantasy and some little creative writing in there, but there was enough truth in there and enough truthful nuggets for them to get all pissy about it. Now what they’ve got is they’ve got a narrative that they can’t control.

Understand that what you say about your company and your brand isn’t actually that important. It’s what other people are saying about your brand, your voice, your message, and what you do that is gospel. The British royal family have decided, as they usually do in their wisdom, now bearing in mind, the British royal family is referred to as an institution and a firm. And I’m telling you, if it was a registered company, a publicly traded company, that damn thing would have filed for Chapter 11 many, many years ago, like some of the wonderful brands that I already mentioned to you, because how they run a company is bad. But because they’re a major tourist attraction and the money they bring into the UK, they can afford to sit back and go mum. And that’s what they’ve done. The downside is they can’t go mum now because there’s two rogue agents out there talking about it. Whether or not they want to be in the conversation, the conversation is being had. Whether or not they want to be looked at badly, they are being looked at badly.

They fail to see the branding opportunity of a lifetime that they had in front of them, and I want you to learn from that. You see, a lot of times things are going to come to you and you’re going to go, “I wonder if that was works. Is it going to work for me or is it going to bite me?” And you consider the alternatives, and hopefully you can pivot fast enough to actually look at the ones that are going to benefit you. Think of how demonic actually responding to Meghan, and think about how you would translate that into your company. All of these podcasts, all of these videos are there to benefit you. It’s not a long one, but the fact that the planet is having a conversation about Meghan and Harry at the moment means there’s a marketplace and an interest.

Don’t be stupid enough to think that no one’s watching, no one’s cared. It’s the highest rated program that’s gone out there, better than any of the award shows, any of those kind of things, and there were only three people in it, Oprah, Harry and Meghan. That’s pretty damn good. Think about your company. Think what branding opportunities potentially you could ruin for yourself and what will be the outcome, and understand that the second you let the messaging and narrative and tone and story get out of your sand pit, you’re no longer in control of it.

Anyway, this is a brief one. I know it sounds a little bit funny to bring it up, but it’s very topical. It’s very conversational, maybe even controversial, but there again, shouldn’t all the best conversations be part of those? Maybe. Anyway, do something wonderful for your company, your life. If you like these, share them. If you hate them, tell me. If there’s a subject you want discussed, tell me again. Anyway, look after yourself.

Sims Distillery

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