RULES, RULES, AND MORE RULES
First of all, it is good to remember that even a simple mention of any member of the royal family or a significant event is not a commonplace for marketers. Of course, many of them would like to add a touch of formality to their product, and references to the ruling family or symbols of the British monarchy are more suited to this than anything else. But as has been said, it is not that simple - no member of the royal family can be mentioned or shown in any marketing campaign without prior approval. The only exceptions to this are incidental mentions that are not directly related to the product being advertised and mentions in books, articles, films or other sources associated with that person. But even this is not a 100% rule.
These cases are real. The British Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) deals with them on a regular basis, with suggestions coming not just from the Palace but from ordinary viewers. The Queen’s birthday has always been a fairly challenging area to cover - brands naturally wanted to wish the monarch a happy birthday but had to be very careful not to do so in a way that might suggest their products had the support of the royal family. These situations practically show how dangerously thin the line is. It is the same with other symbols of the monarchy, such as the royal coat of arms, royal emblems, or royal warrants. Their use automatically gives the impression that the authority of the royal family is behind the advertised product. But of course, in most cases this is not the case. The use of these emblems must be preceded by permission from the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, and it is certainly no surprise that these permissions are not granted to just anyone.
Special rules are imposed on souvenirs, which work extensively with the symbols of the British monarchy. Authenticity is key - one of the biggest offences a souvenir seller can commit is to advertise a product that does not actually look as good as the advert suggested. In the past, some porcelain dolls that you definitely would not want on your shelf have been withdrawn from sale. Again, these are situations that the ASA has been dealing with quite extensively. These are the ones where complaints are very common, as souvenirs are products with which consumers have first-hand experience. It should also be remembered that souvenirs are not officially approved products. Their manufacturers should therefore not, under any circumstances, suggest that they are.
These are the main rules for those who operate beyond the confines of the royal palace. But what about those who have actually lived there? Queen Elizabeth II was beloved by many, which was partly due to her ability to keep up with the times that moved forward dynamically around her. After her death, she was remembered mainly for three daring stunts, all designed primarily for the television screen. What was the ‘big three’?
PARACHUTING WITH JAMES BOND
When London hosted the Olympics in 2012, everyone was eager to see how the island kingdom would handle the difficult task of scripting and producing the opening ceremony. No one doubted that it would be spectacular but there were still questions about the role that the Queen herself would play in the event. However, few expected her to eventually parachute into the Olympic Stadium alongside her trusty agent with a licence to kill, James Bond. What is more, it was not just a surprise for the audience - it was later leaked that the Queen’s only condition for agreeing to the filming was that none of her family knew about it beforehand. Elizabeth II was always ready to shock and step out of her role as a stoic and rigid monarch.
On the opening day of the 2012 Summer Olympics, Daniel Craig’s Agent 007 walks through the corridors of Buckingham Palace until he inevitably arrives at Her Majesty’s chambers. He timidly waits for the Queen to deal with her correspondence before she is ready to head to the much-anticipated ceremony. Another passage through the halls of the royal palace follows, during which the pair are followed by an equally loyal pair of the Queen’s corgis. Then, James Bond and the Queen are boarding a helicopter and flying past London landmarks, including the London Eye and the Tower Bridge. The whole sketch ends with the parachute jump into the Olympic Stadium - where the Queen in identical dress and her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, are simultaneously ushered into their places of honour in the stands.
Video: Olympics – James Bond and The Queen London 2012 Performance (2012)
The Queen’s entrée sketch quickly became one of the most talked about moments of not only the Opening Ceremony but of the entire Olympic Games. Naturally, success with the audience and viral potential was expected. Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle, who is also responsible for cult blockbusters such as Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire, was behind the idea. Even Craig himself, who was already fed up with James Bond at the time, enjoyed and praised the filming. After all, not many actors are lucky enough to appear in a comic sketch on the silver screen alongside the British Queen. Perhaps most surprisingly, Elizabeth herself insisted on her personal appearance in the video. Boyle and his team originally considered using a stunt double instead.
“We went to the palace asking for permission to represent her and to know what she was wearing on the day and it was her amazing dresser who said, ‘No, no, she wants to be in it.’ She was game and she was up for that. In fact, on the day when we were filming, she asked Danny Boyle if she could have a line because there wasn’t a line in the script, probably because when I was typing the script I didn’t quite know how you would type the character of the Queen, what would you type,” Frank Cottrell-Boyce, one of Boyle’s production team, recalls the extraordinary shoot.
And so the Queen provided one of the most surprising moments of the Olympic Games which were packed with sporting achievements.
IN A COMPETITIVE MOOD WITH PRINCE HARRY
Much has been written about the rifts between Prince Harry, his wife Meghan Markle, and the rest of the royal family that have marked Elizabeth II’s last few years on the throne. But in 2016, she and Harry appeared side by side as a family - in the trailer for the second annual Invictus Games, an international sporting event for wounded male and female war veterans, held that year in Orlando, USA. For Harry, who chose the welfare of war veterans as his profile topic, this was a very important project. Harry was instrumental in organising the event from the beginning. As the Buckingham Palace correspondent Valentine Low later revealed in his book Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown, Harry hesitated until the last moment whether or not to ask his grandmother to take part in the spot.
“The plan was that Harry would have tea with his grandmother, and on that occasion, he was to explain to her what we wanted to shoot. Then we’d come in and film it. Harry was coming from Kensington Palace, there was terrible traffic, so he was already a bit late and even more nervous,” Low cites information from an unnamed source. The entire shoot reportedly took only two takes, which resulted in a 40-second spot. The Queen reportedly enjoyed the shoot. “Elizabeth said after the shoot that it was fun and that she was sorry that people didn’t come to her more often with similar ideas. She was clearly excited about the whole thing and wanted to support her grandson as well as the idea that the Invictus Games represent,” Low quotes another unspecified source.
Video: The Royal Family – Invictus Games 2016 fighting talk (2016)
In addition to Harry and the Queen, the spot also features two other stars - the then US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle, who were actually the catalyst for the clip’s creation. In fact, the presidential couple sent a video message to Harry before the second Invictus Games, in which they recalled Harry’s challenge from the premiere event where he told them to prepare for it with everything at their disposal. The Obamas responded, and Harry thought it was so brilliant that he knew his response could not be any less creative. But that was when the doubts set in. While everyone around him was convincing him that he had to persuade the Queen, he himself feared that such a move would undermine her authority as monarch.
In the end, however, everything went as planned. The Queen and Harry met in one of the lounges of the royal palace where the prince explained to her everything about the idea and rules of the Invictus Games. In the course of this, his iPhone buzzes with a new message from the First Lady of the United States, which of course contains that cheeky video in which she, her husband and several American soldiers question whether the UK can trump American war veterans at the Invictus Games. Neither Harry nor the Queen, however, shies away from such a challenge, and instead embraces it with enthusiasm. It may not have been the original intention, but it is a very harmonious and nice family moment. One that Harry and his family did not experience much of afterwards.
The Queen created the appearance that all was fine in her family in 2016.
TEA WITH A TEDDY BEAR
When Elizabeth II died last autumn, marmalade sandwiches began to appear in large numbers at many places of remembrance. It was a direct effect of one of her last TV appearances - a tea party with the popular animated Paddington Bear. The sketch was created that year to celebrate the platinum anniversary of the Queen’s coronation. A mega-concert was held outside Buckingham Palace to mark the occasion, which the Queen unfortunately did not attend due to her health problems. Her meeting with Paddington therefore served as a salute and, to some extent, a farewell to the loyal subjects who have never abandoned the monarchy.
Why this particular connection? Both the Queen and the animated teddy bear strangely share some of the characteristics that the public attributes to them. Both are symbols of kindness and decency, two key qualities you need to transform the world for the better. At least that was the intention of the creators of this humorous sketch. From a narrative point of view, it is nothing complicated - Paddington is having an audience with the Queen, they are having tea and conversation. Paddington is typically a bit clumsy and straightforward, to which the Queen responds with her usual stoic attitude and an emphasis on following all the rules of palace protocol. Towards the end of the tea party, the two find the thing that unites them - it is the marmalade sandwich, which both of them always prefer to keep close at hand.
Video: The Royal Family – Ma’amalade sandwich Your Majesty? (2022)
“What an astute idea it was to have her act with Paddington because Paddington embodies so many of the values that she stood for. Paddington is all about kindness, tolerance, being kind to strangers, politeness, these things that are about character. And they’re not values that are uncontested at the moment. So it was not purely a cute thing to do. It was significant. And that’s why it’s resonated so much,” comments Frank Cottrell-Boyce, one of the co-writers of the sketch, who also co-wrote the James Bond Olympic film.
The filming itself required some acting skills from Elizabeth II. Of course, Paddington was not present at Buckingham Palace during the production and was only finished subsequently with the help of CGI. So the Queen sat alone in the drawing room and one of the most challenging moments of the whole process was getting the timing right. Especially at the end, when the Queen and the teddy bear are simultaneously toasting with tea, and the first notes of Queen’s We Will Rock You, which opened the London mega-concert, begin to play in the clip. But to the surprise of all the crew, the Queen managed to synchronise perfectly the first time.
And thus a symbol was born that played a huge role in the process of global mourning.
OUT OF CONTROL AND IN DEFIANCE OF THE PALACE
Of course, it is clear that a public figure as famous and respected as Elizabeth II could not lend her name to just any commercial brand or product. All three of the above-mentioned big spots have one thing in common - they are not typical TV advertisements but rather teasers attracting to some important national or international event. But that does not mean that references to the Queen do not appear in some form in classic TV ads.
A somewhat provocative example is an advert launched by The Body Shop, a company specialising in body and beauty products, on the occasion of Mother’s Day 2016. The short spot features actors dressed up to resemble members of the royal family. The story premise is simple – “Prince Charles” wants to give his mother a bouquet of roses for the special day, but the seemingly simple task turns out to be more complicated than it might seem. The anabasis involves scenes such as “Prince Harry” after a drinking spree, a bed of roses totally destroyed by corgis, and “Lady Camilla” being sprayed with a hose by Prince Charles. Fortunately, the gift eventually reaches the “Queen”, and she is delighted. The spot ends with a message for everyone to treat their mothers like queens. No doubt a concept that is very different from the usual official presentation of the Palace.
Video: The Body Shop – British Roses for “The Queen” (2016)
Moreover, occasionally a member of the extended royal family appears in an advert somewhere in the world. For example, this is how in 2020, the Queen’s eldest grandson Peter Phillips came into the media spotlight - and not in the most flattering way. Phillips featured in two Chinese milk TV ads commissioned by one of China’s leading state-owned food companies. The biggest controversy was that Phillips was titled as a member of the British royal family in the ad, which incurred displeasure mainly because of the drama surrounding Harry and Meghan’s move to the US at the same time.
Video: Peter Phillips: Queen’s eldest grandchild in Chinese milk ad (2020)
The entire spot is filmed to evoke a British country estate, but looking out the window, it is clear that Phillips is in downtown Shanghai all the time. The part where Phillips refers to the territory of Jersey as the royal “estate” of Britain is also not completely kosher as Jersey is officially the British Crown Dependency. And even though Bright Dairies is a multinational corporation, the Jersey Fresh Milk advert was intended specifically for the Chinese market. In the spot, the grandson naturally praises the brand and reminisces about his childhood spent in the British countryside. But he fails to mention that he has made tens of thousands of pounds thanks to this opportunity. At a time when the British royal family was resisting with all its might the pejorative “Royals For Hire” label, this episode certainly did not add to its credibility.
This is also part of the British royal family’s footprint in the world of TV advertising. Fortunately for everyone, these minor adverts lag behind the ‘big three’ with Elizabeth II in virtually everything. The Queen repeatedly proved in the ads that she was a woman in the right place at the right time, even though that time spanned decades. Charles III will have a lot of work to do to match his mother in this regard. He is certainly aware that he is by no means as flexible, progressive, or universally popular as Her Majesty. But who knows, we may also get to see him do an iconic stunt like the famous parachute jump.
