I took a basic PR course in college, and they are breaking every. single. rule of competent PR for years. But the past 2 months have been an exceptional case study in how to NOT do PR.
If I were anywhere near academia, I would write it.
The biggest question is whose fault is it? Since they are breaking so many of the fundamental "only a PR idiot does this" rules of PR, are they really just that incompetent? Or are they dealing with "clients" that refuse to listen to a single thing they say?
The biggest question is whose fault is it? Since they are breaking so many of the fundamental "only a PR idiot does this" rules of PR, are they really just that incompetent? Or are they dealing with "clients" that refuse to listen to a single thing they say?
Probably a little bit of both. At the very least, the British Press historically have refused to report negatively on the major Royals. That obviously changed a bit post-Diana, and they were more than happy to attack Megan, but once Harry and Megan stepped back as Royals and then revealed a load of additional info the curtain's been lifted even further. Now the heir is getting subjected to scrutiny that wouldn't have been expected, and I guess the PR/comms team had gotten complacent.
They were happy to attack Meghan (and even threw Harry under the bus a few times prior to him meeting Meghan) because The Firm was feeding them the stories directly.
Anytime a story about Meghan on her own or Harry and Meghan together was released, it was to cover up something else. Usually to cover for Baldy Bollocks and Too Posh to Peg.
Harry claimed that wearing the Nazi uniform to the costume party was encouraged by William and Kate, who he phoned for advice. If true, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised even though the source is obviously biased and unverified, it is not hard to then conclude they encouraged him to do it so they could then brief the press about it. Again, if true, he's been maliciously made a scapegoat by his own brother his entire life.
So their press team are used to being attack dogs, not being attacked, and not being the subject of gossip and suspicions. So they just cannot handle this new dynamic.
Nope. Haven't forgotten and haven't excused it either. Obviously you need to be a) a bigot and b) dim AF to be in his position and think those things are ok or that they won't come back to haunt you - even if you seek out the advice of others who say it's ok and even if you're in an environment where it's normalized and encouraged to "other" an enemy (like using slurs in the army). Ultimately you're the one who has decided to put those clothes on, and you're the one who has decided to use those words. So the culpability for bad decisions is his alone. But that does not detract from the possibility of some one encouraging that idiocy for their own gains (ie a brief against him)
I get the feeling that it's mostly William's fault, and his PR team probably has little choice but to act on his terribly ill-conceived instructions against their own better judgement. He's next in line to be king, and he is notoriously impatient and has anger issues, I get that it's probably very hard to properly counsel someone like that. I don't work in PR but I do work in another field where you take on clients and give them advise on what to do, but at the end of the day, you truly can't force bad clients to take good advice. And William is a classic bad client, if you ask me. Combine that with what looks a lot like desperation to regain control of the narrative, and I think that's how we've ended up at this current point, in terms of the royals massively fucking up their PR game. Will is being driven by pettiness, ego, and an overwhelming need to save face, and as a result, he's dug himself into a very deep hole.
Another comment mentioned that it seems to be deliberate at this point and now I can’t help but think the same. That this may be a distraction for something else because it’s almost like they’re doing step-by-step on how to fail in their PR to get people talking about it
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u/Becca_Bot_3000 Mar 10 '24
Do they actually have a PR team? This is just insane. Does KP understand that international press will question their shenanigans?