On Monday night, Meghan and Harry “quietly” launched a new website—Sussex.com. Of course, by Tuesday morning, the website was causing quite the stir in the royal-watching world. If you visit the site, you will find it looks suspiciously like, well, royal.uk, the British Royal Family’s website. The Royal Family uses a majority white color scheme with blue accents, and the Sussexes use predominantly blue with white accents. But they are both clean designs with similar information, organized in a similar fashion, with prominent use of royal crests.
Harry and Meghan’s new site is called The Office of Prince Harry and Meghan, which feels like an obvious attempt to create the perception of a similar structure to that of the royal households, which we discussed in this throw-back post and in this follow up post. Prominently using Meghan’s royal crest—the one created for her when she married Harry—completes the royal look.
At first, I thought this new site was just an addition to the couple’s various projects, but when I checked Archewell’s website, it is no more. If you visit the Archewell site (www.archewell.COM), it redirects automatically to Sussex.com. This is almost certainly a confirmation of suspicions that Archewell has not been a success. Archewell still gets a shout-out on the new website, and there are links to Archewell.ORG, which is a more foundation-focused site for Archewell.
You will not be shocked to discover that I have never spent a lot of time on the Archewell website. But I do remember that it was kind of a clean landing page with pictures of Harry and Meghan and some inspirational block quotes. The couple would post various statements there. It was a confused website—and charity-focused foundation…and Meghan and Harry’s personal statements.
This website launch is being hailed as yet another rebrand by the beleaguered couple. The pivot is clear from the website. The couple have dropped the pretense of using their foundation as the primary project. Sussex.com puts the couple back in focus; they themselves are the main attraction and charitable pursuits are subsidiaries. That is, of course, the royal model, too.
Interestingly, Sussexroyal.com, the website they were told they could not use, is still active. It had a pop-up that presents on every page directing the reader to navigate to their new website, but it leaves the website up and accessible for readers to browse.
When Sussex.com launched Monday, the rumor started to circulate that the website presaged a return to the royal fold for Harry and Meghan. Perhaps the meeting with the king was the first step, some hypothesized. Here are my thoughts.
There is a difference between