WINDSOR, ENGLAND - JANUARY 10: Prince Harry's book "Spare" goes on display in a branch of WH Smith ... [+]
It’s painful to watch Prince Harry inadvertently commit brand suicide with his new book Spare in hopes of building his own brand.
As I said on BBC World News today, a whopping 64% of Brits now have a negative view of Prince Harry. Thanks to Spare, Prince Harry has become Britain’s most unpopular royal (after the Epstein-linked Prince Andrew.) Even younger audiences, who generally held kinder views of Prince Harry, are turning against him. And the media sentiment in the USA seems to be following suit.
Now, if that's not a brand in crisis, I don't know what is.
And if the first reviews of Prince Harry’s book Spare by the Chief culture writer at the respected Guardian newspaper titled “A flawed attempt to reclaim the narrative,” or the The Economist that called it an "ill-advised romp,” are anything to go by, the book is well on its way to being critically panned.
Am I surprised? Not really.
I was so gung ho about Meghan Markle and her initial departure from the British Royal Family that, as a person of South Asian descent, I overlooked the fact that Prince Harry was caught on camera calling fellow cadets the racial slurs "Paki" and "raghead" and then in December of 2022 accepted the Ripple Home award in New York for “fighting structural racism” in the British Royal Family.
Nevertheless, we learn from our mistakes, and Prince Harry teaches us crucial lessons to avoid our brands going bust.
Firstly, I believe brands must generate positive sentiment. Buzz for the sake of generating buzz isn’t enough today - for savvy audiences with highly tuned authenticity detectors - it hasn't been for a while.
And yet the overwhelmingly negative sentiment that Prince Harry is generating in traditional and social media, on both sides of the Atlantic, by disclosing family feuds is simply toxic and shows no signs of slowing down. So much so that it reminds me of the vitriol that Trump generated as President (only Trump had millions of die-hard fans, Prince Harry doesn't have anywhere near the fan following.)
Secondly, brands need to be influential. I believe the real test of a brand is whether or not anyone is buying into what you’re saying.
Are you changing people’s perceptions?
Michelle Obama certainly influenced other people with her memoir “Becoming.” It was inspiring and tapped into an enormous cultural movement of growth, self-empowerment and forgiveness.
Can we say the same for Prince Harry’s influence ability? Not really.
Despite all the negative stories Prince Harry has shared about the British Royal Family and his family members - and all the resulting news headlines - attitudes towards King Charles III and Kate Middleton remain unchanged. And while Prince William’s image has recently taken a slight hit, the future king is still adored.
It’s no wonder the palace continues to have a no-comment position on Harry’s claims against them. Over the past two years of Prince Harry sharing his truth, it turns out he’s had no meaningful impact on the perception of the British Royal Family that’s obviously built enormous brand immunity over the years.
Thirdly, brands need to be relevant to what's happening in the culture. With concerns about a potential recession, inflation, and strikes, audiences will increasingly struggle with Harry’s key messaging, which continues to revolve around family tantrums, fight for titles, and who got better media coverage from the Palace’s PR team.
Why Prince Harry’s PR team would think these repetitive messages would resonate in a book with the general public at this time and not create brand fatigue is mind-boggling to me.
More people watched the BBC’s Happy Valley than tuned into Harry’s explosive interview about Spare on ITV in the UK. And 10.52M U.S. viewers tuned into CBS’s 60 Minutes, which was up 16% from its season-to-date average. But it paled in comparison to the 17.1M people who watched Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s tell-all with Oprah Winfrey.
And, I don't think the problem is that Prince Harry is a divisive brand. As many of you know, I don’t have a problem with divisive brands; I wrote a book on it called The Kim Kardashian Principle. But in my mind, a divisive brand is powerful. Think Kim Kardashian or Barack Obama, or Elon Musk.
When Harry’s not talking about other British Royal Family members, few people want to hear from him. Hot off the heels of their Netflix Harry and Meghan documentary - that broke viewership records - their second Netflix show, Live To Lead, was quickly released to capture the same viewers. But with no exposé of the British Royal family members included, it was a bona fida flop in the USA. Live to Lead failed to break into the top 100 TV shows let alone the top 10 Netflix shows.
I don’t doubt that Spare will become a bestseller; that’s a no-brainer. The marketing budget that Random House puts behind its tent pole books - including buying in store book displays, table space, window displays, supermarket chart places, airport displays, real estate online, outdoor advertising, and inevitably seeing Spare get attached to a range of Prince Harry’s activities and charities - not to mention re-emerge before the holidays around November of this year - will ensure Spare is everywhere! Brand Random House will be laughing to the bank. For brand, Prince Harry, however it’ll be another story.
The problem with Prince Harry is simple; I don’t believe his brand is influential, I believe it’s imploding.
Named Esquire’s Influencer Of The Year, Jeetendr Sehdev is a media personality, international speaker and the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Kim Kardashian Principle: Why Shameless Sells (and How to Do It Right).
