Striking while the iron is hot is generally considered a wise move in the field of sales and marketing. Next week, however, it will be four months since Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s celebrity friends began excitedly sharing images of numbered limited-edition pots of jam (and in one case, dog biscuits) sent to them by her.
Assumptions easily made back then, including that Meghan Markle’s jam would soon be available to buy, have long since fizzled out.
And now, sources in the entertainment world in Hollywood have told The Daily Beast that the date of the entire launch of American Riviera Orchard, when her jam and other products are expected to start being sold online and shipped to stores, is contingent on when Netflix screen her new cooking and homemaking show.
And a report in the Daily Mail Thursday said that the brand and TV show may not be launched until May next year, adding that Meghan has been ordered to correct “irregularities” in her applications made to the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office. The report also claimed that Netflix have now taken over “all executive roles” at the brand and are “delivering deals with wholesalers, designers, growers and retailers.”
One source, a senior entertainment executive, told The Daily Beast: “Everyone has to abide by Netflix’s schedule these days. They are by far the biggest player in town.” The source added there was “literally no point in Meghan doing anything” until Netflix were ready to act.
However the simple fact that regular punters still can’t buy any American Riviera Orchard products smacks to some of bad choreography.
New York-based branding expert Norah Lawlor told The Daily Beast: “From a strategic and branding perspective, if you suggest you are going to launch something but then four months later nothing has happened, the world moves on. Fortunately for them there has been so much going on in the world in the last four months that they could probably relaunch it and no one would really notice. The bigger question is whether they have a real team on it, and whether that team has been able to negotiate the retail channel partnerships to get this into stores.
“Meghan was in the Hamptons recently at a women in business summit; you have to wonder whether she was actually getting business advice, or if she was more concerned with projecting an image of a smart and savvy businesswoman. American Riviera Orchard poses similar questions: Is it really going to be a business, or is it an image-driven add on, designed primarily just to project an image of a serious businesswoman?”
Certainly, Meghan’s various initiatives and businesses in recent years have sometimes seemed to lack seriousness, or follow-through. The list includes the 40X40 mentorship program, which disappeared without any public updates or progress reports, and Meghan and Harry’s podcast deal with Spotify.
The Archetypes podcast, which set out to tackle the labels “which hold women back,” attracted plenty of buzz when it launched. Spotify did not release actual numbers, but it hung on to the top spot for two weeks, according to Variety, before audiences began switching back to favorites like Joe Rogan. Things turned sour, however, when the couple left Spotify, and were ridiculed as “f—ing grifters” by executive Bill Simmons.
Their Netflix output has also been slight, so far, apart from the Harry & Meghan documentary, which was a huge hit but was primarily of interest to audiences because it was a gossip-laden first-person rehashing of their grievances with the royal family. Harry is currently making a show about polo (and is rumored to be heading to the Hamptons to film before the summer is out).
Still, one imagines they would very much like American Riviera Orchard not to be another example of a high-profile launch followed by disappearance without trace.
But Warren Johnson, a veteran PR and marketing consultant who has worked with global consumer brands including Unilever, Sony, Disney, Adidas, Tinder and Nobu, and is the eponymous boss of W Communications, told The Daily Beast that Meghan and her team could actually be playing a very smart game by being patient with the launch.
“The Holy Grail is creating an entire lifestyle ecosystem. Look at what Gordon Ramsay or Martha Stewart has done, it’s about creating symbiotic relationships between cookbooks, TV shows and products…”
— Warren Johnson
“If you are going to produce a product, be that jam or anything else, you want to try and establish demand as forensically as possible before you produce a damn thing,” Johnson said. “It’s a whole lot easier to accelerate your retail listing if you go and see the buyer at Whole Foods and say, ‘We’ve got a million Instagram follows.’ You’ve got an established audience.
“To allow some anticipation to build is not a strategy I would disagree with, especially as it has enabled her to test her credibility, and see if she gets laughed out of town as a jam maker before risking a penny. Personally, I’m not sure the world needs more jams, but maybe I’m wrong.”
Asked to comment on suggestions that the pots of jam sent to her friends might be a feature of her new cookery show, and that she was waiting for the show to drop before launching her products, Johnson said: “The Holy Grail is creating an entire lifestyle ecosystem. Look at what Gordon Ramsay or Martha Stewart has done, it’s about creating symbiotic relationships between cookbooks, TV shows and products so they all feed each other. Using a well-funded TV show that someone else is paying for to advertise your products seems like a great commercial strategy to me.”
The Daily Beast reported last month that Meghan’s show had finished filming, with a source telling The Daily Beast: “It all went well and it is in the can.”
The streaming giant has yet to say when the new series will drop or what it will be called, however Meghan has said it will “celebrate the joys of cooking & gardening, entertaining, and friendship.”
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