109: Royal PR Lessons from Netflix's The Crown

Let the binging begin. Your Majesty, I think we have enough respect for one another personally to ask ourselves some of the bigger questions, woman to woman. The fourth season of the Crown dropped on Netflix last week and I was ready to indulge. I couldn't wait to get into a season that introduced the modern royals, particularly British Prince Charles and Diana, the Princess of Wales. And Gillian Anderson's take on Margaret Thatcher was splendid. I couldn't help myself. I have been Prime Minister all week and my children think I'm cuckoo. Each episode provides drama and intrigue with historical broad strokes. So if you need facts, there's always Google. But every episode is beautifully filmed and directed and the acting is just out of this world. But each episode also provides many lessons and case studies in PR and crisis management. Any communicator worth their salt cannot watch this program without noticing the spin and the mishandling of the events. When I was watching, I was thinking to myself, I wish I could watch this with a PR pro. And there on Twitter, I see a tweet mentioning a blog post, 16 royal PR lessons all inspired from the Crown. I had my pro. I had this week's guest. So if you are interested in PR and a fan of the crown, this episode is your investiture into the world of two women who love both. You are listening to Royal PR Lessons from Netflix the Crown with posh PR expert Julia Joy. And me, of course. Julia, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast to discuss our mutual favorite show of the moment, the Crown and the tie in to public relations. Welcome.

Thank you so much. I'm so excited that you invited me to chat about my favorite show.

Well, my favorite show of the moment as well. I was starting to get a little worried because I was spending too much time watching 90 Day Fiance pimple popper. You know, I was going down a bad reality tunnel for my viewing, but once the Crown came back on, I was immediately hooked. It was binge watching central. And so when I saw your tweet about the crown and even better, the crown jewel of your tweet is that you wrote a blog post about the crown and how it ties into public relations and leadership. And I thought, I have to have her on the podcast to talk about the show. So thank you.

Awesome to be here.

Tell the listeners a little bit about where you are right now in your public relations journey.

I am like almost everyone attempting to survive Covid and doing all of the hard family quarantine, staying home, doing all that difficult stuff. Teenagers in school, working virtually but my area of focus and concern for Covid also extends to businesses. So I'm talking and writing a lot about especially small businesses. What are you doing to ensure that your brand and your company can survive this pandemic? We're past crisis point. And so what plans do you have in place? I'm looking forward to 2021 and I have some pieces that I'm working on. But the economic impacts, of course, are all over the news. But this is devastating to small and medium sized businesses. And I know that it sounds counterintuitive to say invest in your marketing, invest in your communications, but those are the conversations that I'm having. How are you going to make yourself competitive as we drag through this, since clearly it's not coming to an end anytime soon?

No. And in fact, as you know, we're heading into even a darker phase of the virus. And you work ZGroup PR consulting and you are a consultant. And so you really are on the ground with a lot of these businesses, I assume, that are struggling with right now. And it sounds as if you're saying, no, now is the time to communicate. It's not the time to go away and hunker down. It's time to let people know the value that you bring. Correct?

Yes, I would agree. The opposite of what we're supposed to be doing in terms of protecting ourselves from COVID staying home, not interacting with a lot of people. We need to be doing the opposite with our businesses, talking to as many people as possible, being as communicative as possible. And that starts internally with employees and strategy. And then how is that moving your brand forward? And the feeling of, like you said, we're just going to hunker down and get through this probably is not the most successful approach right now.

I could not agree with you more. And there's certainly a resurgence now in technology. What I like to see is my clients are starting to understand the benefits of digital media, social media. They're understanding that people are flocking to technology and not just from a work aspect, but from that of pleasure and watching television. So over the top streaming is all the rage right now. And that's one of the areas that we wanted to talk about, of course, was our mutual love and affection for the Crown on Netflix. And also to tie that in though, can't just be a gab fest about our television show. But here's the big question that I had to ask you and why I want to talk to you on the podcast today. Are you watching this season of the Crown through The lens of a PR practitioner.

Absolutely. That's my lens for everything. And but I was intentional about it for this season, waiting for it. I actually wrote my blog post on my long form piece in anticipation because of what I had learned from previous seasons.

Right. Okay. Well, this is wonderful timing. So you changed my editorial calendar because I was going to do a podcast episode about Harry and Megan in Santa Barbara. It was a catch up because I had a Megxit exit. A Megxit episode about Harry and Megan's choice to leave the royal family move to California. Well, eventually they're now in Santa Barbara and I had a listener reach out to me because she wanted to find out my opinion on Harry and Megan. Well, when I saw your blog post, I thought, okay, we have to bring it all together. So Julia, I get a sense, I don't know if you're as much of an Anglia pile or if you just follow the Royal family like I do, but I would love to get your opinion right now on Megxit, Harry and Megan, even their publicity stunt last week, I believe at during Remembrance Day when Harry was shut out of participating over in London with the Royal family and he had to do it at a Los Angeles cemetery. What are your thoughts about Harry and Megan right now?

Thank you for asking. I love Harry and Megan and and I am not an academic expert. I am a total fan obsessed expert.

Yes, we call them stands now. I heard that's what.

Yes, that's. I believe I've heard that word from my teenagers and this started a long time ago with Princess Diana. However, the publicity that surrounds this organization, these people, means that I can apply my professional knowledge. And so what I think happened with the Remembrance Day is very interesting because from what I saw, the negative media response and the backlash was very centralized to the uk. It wasn't a global backlash and it wasn't a US backlash. And so I think a couple of things to keep in mind. One is in the United States, celebrities post everything on social media all the time. That is a very common activity. Recently celebrities have posted Death of Loved Ones, Extreme Loss talking about their depression. So especially during COVID it's been all out there with their personal communications via social media. Lots of celebrities do that. Harry and Megan are celebrities. She is an actress, she comes from Los Angeles. So I don't think it was out of the ordinary for them at all. It was totally on brand for them. I think that if you are a traditionalist and you want Harry specifically and Harry and Meghan to continue acting like royals it was a little bit off because there's a different expectation there. So when you have the cultural expectations of us versus UK and then you have the celebrity versus Royal expectations, I think that they were different. But I think that's why you didn't see a lot of us being based, you know, media screaming it was par for the course. Exactly what we expect from celebrities.

But there was something quite Kardashian about, you know, hiring a photographer to follow you, follow you in this empty cemetery. And I did read that they were banning other people from coming in, true or not. But I, I step back and look at it more globally is I'm all. Every time I see Harry and Megan, I wonder, did Harry make the right decision? Megan, of course did make the right decision. She was going to come back to Los Angeles and, and try and capitalize on her Sussex brand the best that she could. But looking at the Archwell website and a lot of the misfires that they had starting out, I just wonder if it will all turn out well for them. I'm always looking at them and wondering, was this the best thing? The timing could not have been worse with COVID when they were supposed to launch their in person brand of speaking. I mean, truly could not have been worse. But we shall see. Okay, so let's move on to the crown and which really isn't moving on because you had tweeted an article this morning from Cosmopolitan how watching this season of the crown about Lady Diana, Lady Di is almost like watching Meghan Markle like right over again. So you wrote a brilliant blog post about tying in this idea of the crown, the royal family, how to handle public relations and leadership. And you all tied it in together in a nice little bow. So we, I. So I guess our, our focus today is to be an effective leader or brand. You need to understand how to harness the power of your pr, you know, the power of your own royalty. So with communicators who are, who are constantly working with brands who understand communications and fight it, I wanted you just to give a, just a summary on your blog post. What was the overall takeaway?

Yeah, my overall takeaway is that there two key things drive me. One is history. And so looking at what has gone right and what has gone wrong, and I have said this before, this isn't the first time I've talked about the royal family. I believe the royal family is the greatest long term brand of any organization. Hundreds of years of building, refining, defining, challenging, accepting public perception. To me that is the epitome of public Relations, a constant interaction with your public based entirely on how they feel about you. There is really no product or service that the public is buying. And as a constitutional monarchy, they have survived where others have fallen. So I feel like historically that's important. And as an organization, there are so many similarities and parallels to Coca Cola or Nike or almost any other brand. And so you look at the structure of the royal family and you look at the structure of a brand, and they're quite similar. So it makes sense to me to. To draw from one to help the other.

I think, as they would say in the uk, brilliant. It's a brilliant idea. And. And the Queen. The Queen Mom. I mean, talk about sustaining a reputation over decades. I mean, she really is the PR leadership success story here, isn't she?

If she were a CEO, she would have received every award that the business community has ever given. So length of time, impact of service, breadth and depth of service. What's amazing is she started relatively unprepared at, I think, age 25, and has successfully, that is debatable in some situations, manage this massive international brand. If she was a CEO, she'd be on the COVID of magazines. She is on the COVID of magazines, but not in the same way that a business person is. And so if you're looking at female equity, female power, female leadership, not very many people can compare. And again, I just think that there are so many lessons there. If you just take a slight step back and kind of fall into the fantasy a little bit and aren't too shocked by the glitz and the glamour, you can really have some important takeaways by observing this organization.

Oh, how astute of you. I could not agree with you more. And I think people now just hearing your words are going to look at the Royal family and the Queen in particular, Lee, much differently now. Your blog post, 16 Royal PR Lessons, which I loved, by the way, you got me with my favorite show, the Crown Comes Back, for season four. You wrote a list of royal PR lessons and you are going to take the top three. But before you do that, I wanted to pick one. Your last one that isn't highlighted, but it came up in the episode that I watched last night. It's your Last 1. Number 16. Understand the difference between tradition and apathy, meaning change. What did you mean by that?

I think that those two things, tradition, I think, is incredibly important historically and in terms of organizational development. So even a startup holding to your key values, holding to your culture, is what has made many organizations successful. So in the business world, that tradition, what you started with, what has worked for you, you could say that Apple is an extremely successful brand because they have held to tradition. That is different. And I'm sure there are people who argued with Steve Jobs about his holding too tightly to his vision and his values. I think that needs to be respected and rewarded. But occasionally it crosses over to the dark side. You're not holding tightly to your vision and your values. You're not maintaining the tradition of your organization. You've just gotten lazy. You are afraid of change. And so it's probably not very far from being a strong advocate for the tradition of your organization to actually being somebody who is undermining growth because you simply can't face new realities, new opportunities, new options.

Excellent point. Excellent point. When I was watching last night, I have not gone through the entire season. I'm very careful. And yes, for the sake of the interview, I am on episode seven right now. But on the episode about titled Fagan, about Michael Fagan, he was the intruder who broke into. Who. Who broke into the palace, into Elizabeth's bedroom while she was sleeping, which this was a. I forgot that historical story. Like, I remember, like watching this, it does send you back into time. Margaret Thatcher in our age, you know, being Gen X, I appreciated the music when I heard Boys Don't Cry. Come on. I thought, oh, I Love this episode. All 80s music, alt music. But when the Queen said, for the foreshadowing, she said they were told to be. When her and King Philip were walking, were walking down the hallway and they were talking about security, that Margaret Thatcher wanted them to have more security around the palace, that she said that she wanted to meet the public. You know, she took pleasure in meeting the public and she was told by her advisor, Lord Alta something or other, I can't remember that they need to be more transparent, more, more accessible. Now, who knows if she said that many years ago in the 80s, but certainly that was a statement of the moment. Wouldn't you agree? That was very telling. That's such a PR statement.

Absolutely. And I love the. The writers and producers and researchers of this show. And I would love to hang out with all of them and get the behind the scenes.

Right.

Right. Clearly understand the dynamic between the royal family and the public. They're not just telling the stories, the love stories, the hate stories, the celebrity stories. They hit home in almost every scene but throughout every episode. How the difference between the reality and the perception is being played and managed, except for the few times that it gets totally out of control and we See that it wasn't managed. And so they are very clear on this dance between what's really going on and public perception. And that's what I love about it. It's not just the story, it's the reality. Even though it's fictional.

Even though it's fictional. And there was. Even today, there's a lot of stories out there. There's some blowback that they're taking artistic license too far. They're taking in a historical event, but they're not historically accurate even at all. They're really questioning it. However, I think you and I agree on this is when it's a streaming television program, its intent is not a documentary. It's not the History Channel. Its intent is to take a snapshot of time and then to build a narrative around it that is for our time, you know, especially our time 2020, when people are more ingrained and more involved in people's reputation. So I think the producers are doing a brilliant job weaving in truth and artistry. And my gosh, the filming is nothing but beautiful. But I don't have a problem with the historical inaccuracies. But I will admit, going to Google while I'm watching this a few times, just. Just to reframe it and to make sure I'm watching it correctly. Right?

And I've done that, you know, a dozen times, something that I thought I knew about, and I'm watching it. And so, yeah, Wikipedia for. I don't even have to finish typing because a million people are typing the same thing I am.

Right.

And, yeah, there are some differences. Like you said, it's creative license there. I could name probably 10 historical documentaries about the British royal family that anybody could watch if they wanted. The actual academic versions, however, those are pretty tame. So the information that you're going to get from official resources are very much going to protect and maintain the image of the royal family. So this show, and especially this season, has gotten a lot of pushback officially. And so they are harping on the point that it's not accurate. But if we. Part of that is intentional to show the fullness also of what we don't know. Part of this is we have to imagine the conversations that were happening because nobody told us what those conversations were. So it is a pushback against the lack of information, which, of course then goes to a communications issue. So I'm just in love with it all over again.

I know, I know.

And I.

And we have to get to these points, but I could just sit and talk about the Crown Forever. But so far my favorite scene, because I was waiting for it was Prince Andrew. Like, at first I thought they were intentionally avoiding Prince Andrew and they weren't even gonna have him visit the palace. But then when they brought Prince Andrew in for lunch with his mummy and he loved the salmon, he knew to say it was wonderful. In contrast to Edward who thought it was stuffy. But I love that they chose to have the conversation between the Queen at lunch with Prince Andrew about him dating Ku Stark, who I totally remember, and that she was filming this movie and there were these predatory men who were out to get her. She was a 17 year old nubile youth. I thought that is the most intentional subscript writing I have ever heard from the producers. I mean, it just sets the stage for, for what happened to Prince Andrew embroiled in the Jeffrey Epstein crisis.

Absolutely. And I would have been irked if they had shied away from that. But this is what the royal family is grappling with right now in 2020. We are requiring more transparency. We are requiring more honesty. You don't just get the glitzy, varnished, prepared public Persona. We want the truth. And the truth is these are at best, these are very complicated people, but they are complicated people that are entirely dependent on the public to continue. And so that relationship has to be respected. And the public doesn't love Jeffrey Epstein. So you can't totally whitewash that. And, and I think done a fantastic job even really specifically with each character. I saw that there was a lot of blocking. I don't know, I don't know television, but really focusing on each character because in 2020, we're sitting around wondering how did we get here? How did, how did we know historically what has happened? And they are showing us how from point A to point B. Oh, that's how we're here. That.

Yes.

For these. Want to discuss his relationship with Epstein. That there's, there's. They're pulling the history together for us. Maybe creatively, but I think they're doing justice to the essence of truth.

Oh, I could not agree with you more. So let's jump into your list. Your royal hashtag PR lessons about royal PR. And you have 16, but you're going to highlight three. Three. So your, your first one is understanding your public. Understanding your public. What do you mean by that, Julia?

Yes, I capitalize the word your Y O U R because what I find irritating in this whole dynamic is that for many parts of history, the royal family seems to not understand who the public is and what they take for granted what they seem to be so oblivious to. Where professionals have to step in and give advice, such as you need to be more transparent or you need to be more visible. And this goes back generations. You need to interact with the public is their public, or lords and ladies, the aristocracy. And that's who they think they're playing to. And so your public isn't who you're super comfortable with and who you like talking to. Your public is the true public that you are interacting with. And so for how brands can take away from that point is you might think you know your customer, and we see this all the time in marketing and customer data analysis. But you really need to ask questions to know for sure who your customer is. So this isn't a brand activity where you say, my customer is ABC and throw out some demographics of your ideal customer. No, you do the research, you look at the data, you get the information and the feedback that confirms that your customer is abc.

Yeah, I agree with you. And I did a podcast two episodes ago about building a base and finding out out essentially who your fans are, which is really the success behind President Trump. And in the episode, Episode seven of the Crown. No, Episode six of the Crown, when they were in Australia, Princess Diana and Prince Charles, it's as if Princess Diana knew her audience. She knew what her brand was, whereas Prince Charles did not. He thought the public, the Australians, loved him simply because he was a prince. And Princess Diana said, they love me because I am a mother and I am a wife. And she knew that. And that's why she was able just to amplify her brand and why people understood it. At least that's how I see it. So the lesson that, yes, I learn and I pull away from understanding your public is you don't want to go too broad and reach too far, is find your fans first and who really does resonate with you, but also who do you help directly. And then you just go from there. Yes. Okay, wonderful. Let's move on down your list. And you have for number two, which is number seven on your list, always have a contingency plan. Tell me more.

Well, we see this with. I mean, we wouldn't have our jobs probably if everybody had a contingency plan, because that's where you see a lot of crisis communications, because, hey, somebody didn't have a backup plan. But specific to the royal family, we see several occasions where they are deer in headlights, absolutely shocked that something has transpired, something has gone down not in their favor, and they are stunned. And surprisingly, with all their resources, they don't have a backup plan. And so I think it comes from. And organizations do this, too, being so absolute in your focus that it never occurs to you that some other division department person doesn't hold that same focus. And so we saw it with the king who abdicated. We saw it with Princess Diana. They just assumed, because it was so solid in their mind, that they would do the right thing, fill in the blank, whatever they thought the right thing was, that when somebody else showed up, even though there were signs of it and there were indications of it and decided, no, I'm not going along with this plan, everybody looked around and was like, well, wait, we don't know what to do. That is too much assuming, too much dependence on requiring everyone to toe the line and not enough understanding of how especially people deviate and take their own path and challenge authority. And so for organizations, you have to take some time to consider that things won't go to plan, work to plan, but consider that they won't go to plan.

That's a good point that you highlighted. The second point where I saw it play out historically and current events with the Royal Family watching again, when Princess Margaret Helen Abonne Carter, when they were discussing Prince Charles getting married to Diana Spencer, and she knew more than anyone since she experienced it herself, that this wedding was not going to work. And she said, he loves another woman. And she knew that this was going nowhere fast. But there was no contingency plan in place for this marriage to fail. It had, because that's. The Queen Mother said, this is how it's done. I fast forwarded that to Harry and Megan. I don't think they had a contingency plan. They just assumed they were so powerful and that the Sussex brand, that no one would even question them on their use of the Sussex brand as they. As they brought it across the transatlantic journey that it made. And I think we're shocked and flabbergasted that the Royal Family shut it down. And I don't think they had one. And it took them quite some time to recover.

Yeah, I agree. I agree with that.

Yeah.

I think they're still in recovery mode. We'll see how that goes for that.

Yes, I agree with you. They are. They are. Okay. And then your last point, which I love, and I can't wait to hear this. Avoid celebrity. Yeah.

This is a hard one for actual celebrities. But organization, organizations, celebrity is such a beautiful thing. Oh, the lights, the cameras, the screaming crowds. You could. You would understand how anybody could get Sucked into that and live for that. And what happens with organizations is occasionally we have these celebrity CEOs, which I've talked about before. So celebrity leadership, and it slides over slightly. It's slightly aside from transformational or inspirational leaders into celebrity. And the problem with celebrity is fans are fickle. Celebrity isn't really strategy. And so for brands, I would think that watching the royal family would be a really vivid case in not relying on celebrity, because we've seen how poorly it's gone for some members of that family. And so occasionally we see in the business world a CEO who rises to fame as a leader based on personality or engagement with their public, and they really develop fans. But that doesn't necessarily move the business forward. And so whatever skyrocket, ascension to celebrity that a business leader CEO may have, just like regular movie stars and entertainers and royals, that star can flame out and fall really fast. And so developing the business and pacing yourself, which I think is one of my other points, will help to avoid that. And there's a push pull, and especially from a PR perspective, because really early in an organization, you want to ignite and engage those fans. You want that following. You almost want what one might call a cult following. And that really is important for some growth strategies. And so it's really a balancing act. But we've seen recently, an example, I think, is Elon Musk over at Tesla. His celebrity isn't financially hurting his brand currently, but it generally hurts his brand. And now he's let go of all his PR people in his media relations team. So I don't think he cares. And I'm not sure it's hit him in the pocketbook. That's usually where people care. It is very rare, extremely rare, that a CEO can get away with that level of celebrity and the negatives that come with it and still maintain a successful, vibrant brand.

Elon is in a category of his own because he's created a car that so many people aspire to drive. It's almost like he has this protection around him. If he didn't have it, or if it was one of many, I think he would have more cracks in his. In his image. The bite of celebrity. I agree with everything that you said. I think the ones who seek admiration are the ones who get into trouble, but the ones who can propel an idea or a value system and attach that to their celebrity, it works. Allah, Princess Diana, she was a royal celebrity, but she could back it up because she was the people's princess. And that wasn't Just for show. She was. And she showed it. There were visuals. We saw it all the time back in the 80s. And even now, Megan, I don't think captures it quite as much. She seems to enjoy more of the celebrity of it. I feel, at least that's her brand right now. Whereas Harry is kind of in the crush of it. He's married to a celebrity seeker, or they're living a lifestyle of a celebrity. But I still think he's wired as a royal, that he works for his public, but he's doing it from Santa Barbara, so there's some confusion there. Is there any other landmines that you saw in the crown about celebrity with any other characters?

So much of it. I haven't spent a lot of time understanding Prince Charles, and I think that he had a little bit too much of an attachment. What's being portrayed is too much of attachment to celebrity and an inability to connect with people, to reach out to do that public work. But being very desirous of the rewards of that and being, you know, even if they exaggerated, if you cut it in half to 50% of what's portrayed, of his just outrage of Diana's celebrity, you know, that feeling of he really feels entitled, and he technically is entitled. He will be the next king. He's entitled to a lot. But it was so such a glaring difference between what he was lacking and what he wasn't receiving after years of the public spotlight. I mean, he got good press, people liked him. But being so offended by Diana, just sort of flailing onto the public stage and being miraculous at it. And one thing that I. There's a lot of bittersweet moments. I feel like this season is a little bit more intense, emotionally intense. These are more emotional people. The Queen wasn't ever really that emotional, so there was emotional intenseness, and we really feel it this season. But Camilla Parker Bowles, when they are, as his mistress, understanding that she is never going to be able to compete with this and being cognizant of her place and her role and what the public will do if she steps out of line, lots of people knew she was the mistress. She was in no way capable of trying to be the next Princess of Wales. If it had gone down the way Charles intended and she supported where he would divorce Diana and she would be the next Princess of Wales, she would have never survived the public scrutiny. And it's unfortunate, but the only reason she has the acceptance that she has now is because Diana's not alive anymore. Even. Even if they had gotten divorced But Diana had not had her tragic accident. That would be. I believe that was a competition. She was well aware she was never going to win and she would have just backed away from.

Camilla knew her place and. And she had the staying power and that's why she is where she is right now. Julia, thank you so much for gabbing with me about the crown about it. I will put a link to your blog post on the show notes, but in summary, you had 16 royal PR lessons. But the highlight today, understanding your public. Always have a contingency plan and avoid celebrity. Julia, what is the overall takeaway about royal pr?

There is so much to be gleaned from history and there is so much that's shockingly relevant from 100 years ago, from 50 years ago, from 10 years ago, that if we take the time, just a small amount of time to stop, we're all so future focused, so technology focused. There are great lessons that can be learned from history and we need to not forget those. And we need to take the time to make sure that we are incorporating those lessons. We are not walking away from the past, good or bad, that we are looking at history as a predictor of the future and using those lessons to our benefit.

Oh, so well said. Oh, well, thank you. Are the Iron lady of pr. I have decided, Julia, you are the Iron lady of pr.

Can we do a Margaret Thatcher podcast that has been tremendous to watch for later.

Oh, that I know, because the Margaret Thatcher piece of it. I am redoing my entire perception of Margaret Thatcher watching it on the crown, even though I not. I know it's not 100% accurate, but looking and also, my gosh, you're right, we need another podcast looking at a Conservative leader and how she's managing it as also as a female as well. So. Oh, God, there's so much. So obviously we're recommending the crown highly, not only for the historical takeaways, but the PR takeaways which you so astutely were able to pick out in your blog post. Julia, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and my listeners today.

Thank you, Molly. I've loved every minute of it.

Thanks. Cheerio.

Cheerio.

Brilliant. I want to thank my guest this week, my PR mate, Julia Joy from Z Group pr, for indulging me PR peeps out there. Are you you able to put aside your profession and just sit and enjoy the crown as a viewer or are you like me, on the clock wanting to step in and run the Royal house? Let me know what you think. Of our assessment of the crown. Pop in on Twitter and discuss. You'll find Julia's article and our Twitter handles in the show notes. That's all for this week. Toodles.