Prince Harry and Meghan Markle ‘Need’ to Be ‘Better’ at What the Royal Family Can Easily ‘Go off and Do’ — Commentator
It seems Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have some work to do. According to a royal commentator, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “need” to hone their “raison d’etre,” or purpose, if they want to be a “philanthropic power couple.”
Harry and Meghan haven’t ‘cultivated a strong brand outside the royal family’
Although they’re living in Montecito, California, and have added to their net worth since stepping back as senior working royals in 2020, Harry and Meghan have a long way to go to create a “strong brand” of their own, Victoria Murphy, a contributing editor of Town & Country, said on the August 2023 episode of Palace Confidential (via Mail Online).
Saying some might be wondering if the pair “made the right decisions” since striking out on their own, Murphy said Harry and Meghan haven’t necessarily been quite successful. Sure, they have a partnership with Netflix and Harry’s Spare memoir continues to be a bestseller. However, a “strong brand” eludes them.
“What they have failed to do yet is to really kind of cultivate a really strong brand outside of the monarchy,” Murphy said. “Something that means that they can go out there and that they’re representing something other than just themselves in a meaningful way.”
“That’s what they lost when they stepped back as working royals,” she continued. “They took away that substance that you get from representing this institution and representing a country. If [Harry and Meghan] want to be this philanthropic power couple with longevity, then I think that’s what they need to find.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have to ‘find’ their purpose and highlight it ‘better’
Murphy continued, saying Harry and Meghan have attempted to be a “really visible, really game-changing couple completely on their own terms.” Asked by journalist and host Jo Elvin what the couple’s trying to do and how they are winning charity awards, she replied: “I think that is what they need, to either find that better or communicate that better.”
“The royal family can go off and do all these things because they have this central focus at the core of their raison d’etre,” Murphy explained. “They’re the monarchy, and that’s what they represent, and people get that.” Meanwhile, “Harry and Meghan, I don’t think either [have] found that or communicated it properly.”
Harry and Meghan have ‘a lot of different things going on’ with their philanthropic efforts
They are doing lots of different things,” the commentator said of Harry and Meghan’s charity work, noting “in some senses” it can “fit into certain categories.”
“There are times when I wonder, would they if they were doing something like this from within their family?” Murphy said. “Would they be making more of an impact with the message around this that they’re trying to make?”
Meghan’s “doing things around female empowerment” while Harry delves into safety online, she added. Between them, “there’s a lot of different things going on.” That leaves the parents of two with the challenge of “connecting people into one really strong message.”
