Yet another conspiracy about the Duchess of Sussex is brewing, and Tom Sykes’ Royalist Substack is here to throw gasoline on the fire. The conspiracy? Per Sykes, “Meghan Markle’s UK Visit Coincides with Baffling ‘As Ever’ Summer Marketing Push.” In other words, “why is Meghan promoting As Ever in the same way she has since she started the brand last year?” They find it “baffling” that a successful brand… sends out bi-weekly emails and posts cute Instagram reels. Shock, horror, capitalism!! If I’m being honest, I thought As Ever’s “Summer Hostess” email blast last week was a magnificent troll, but the pearl-clutching royalists are appalled at the very idea that Meghan’s jam might taint the homewrecker queen consort, the tampon king and the incandescent heir.
As headlines swirl around Meghan Markle’s proposed return to the UK for the first time in four years, the Duchess has taken the opportunity to promote her lifestyle brand, As Ever, with a distinctly strange new Instagram video.
In the clip, Meghan is seen strolling through a garden carrying a wicker basket overflowing with carefully arranged fruit and vegetables, before posing with a cup of tea, presumably one from her As Ever collection, where tea bags retail for $14.
It’s all very odd: Hand in her pocket and glancing back with a smile as she sips her tea, the one thing for sure is that Meghan is very much the star of her own carefully curated scene. But hey, while everyone else is debating why/whether she has chosen to return to Britain next month, after years spent putting as much distance as possible between herself and the Royal Family, the Duchess is using the moment to keep the spotlight firmly on her products and her brand.
The Instagram clip, posted on Tuesday and captioned “A basket full of summer,” appears to be a careful piece of marketing. While Harry and Meghan have struggled with their popularity in Britain since stepping back from royal duties in 2020, even criticism can translate into clicks, and clicks are something the Duchess of Sussex needs.
According to estimates cited by Newsweek, As Ever had attracted just under 400,000 U.S. visitors since January, as of the beginning of this month, making the renewed attention surrounding her return to Britain a potentially valuable opportunity to drive interest in her brand.
Meghan’s dip in popularity with Americans appears to have coincided with a slowdown in traffic to her As Ever online store, suggesting that a warm royal homecoming could help reverse that trend. But while renewed royal associations may boost interest in her brand, many remain uncomfortable with what they see as the commercialization of royal status.
The Windsors and their defenders lack imagination. Anyone with a business/PR background would have advised the palace to lean into Meghan’s “commercialization” and go tit-for-tat. The Buckingham Palace gift shop should have updated their site with a “Summer Hostess” special highlighting similar products. They could have even made a cheeky comment about jam or wine or flower sprinkles. Anything to show that the Windsors aren’t actually this priggish, dull and bum-clenching. Anyway, as I said, Meghan and the As Ever team are just adhering to their promotional strategy which was already in place before all of the news about the UK trip. But but but Netflix cameras! OneOff! Jam! She’s broke! She’s profiting from her royal association! Expiration dates! Commercialization! It’s always going to be something.
Photos courtesy of As Ever’s Instagram, As Ever’s promo emails and Meghan’s Instagram.
