Harry and Meghan's UK return poses branding challenge as projects falter

In late July, Meghan launched her lifestyle brand with a video of herself picking blackberries for a jam. The fruit was ripe, the light was soft, the message was clear: here is a woman in her element, crafting small luxuries. A month later, she and Prince Harry announced they were moving back to the United Kingdom. Blackberry season, of course, would be over by then.

It's a small detail, but it captures something larger about the challenge facing the couple as they prepare to resettle in Britain. After six years of building a life and a brand in California, the Sussexes are returning to the country they left behind—not as working members of the Royal Family, but as civilians with a portfolio of ventures that have largely failed to gain traction. The question now is what comes next, and whether a change of geography can salvage what California could not.

When Harry and Meghan departed from royal life in 2020, they arrived in America with enormous cultural capital. They had Netflix interested. They had Spotify interested. They had the world's attention. What they did not have, as it turned out, was a clear sense of what their brand actually was. Over the past five years, they have pivoted repeatedly—from royal insiders offering glimpses into a secret world, to royal critics airing grievances, to media producers, to lifestyle influencers. Each shift has left them more diffuse, not more focused. Andrew Stephen, a marketing professor at Oxford's Saïd Business School, describes their current portfolio as "fragmented," spanning social impact, entertainment, and lifestyle in ways that make it genuinely unclear what the Sussexes stand for. "I don't think they have been as successful at converting that initial success into an enduring brand," he told the BBC.

The numbers tell part of the story. Netflix paid them roughly $100 million in 2020 for a multi-year deal. Spotify paid roughly $25 million for a podcast series. In return, Netflix received five shows—including a six-part documentary about the couple themselves and two seasons of a lifestyle program—that drew what industry observers describe as underwhelming viewership. Meghan's Spotify podcast, Archetypes, lasted one season before the platform declined to renew it. Last year, the couple and Netflix quietly restructured their arrangement into a "first look" deal, meaning Netflix would consider their pitches but owed them nothing. Only one new Archewell production has been announced so far in 2026. The Spotify partnership ended in 2023 with a joint statement about "mutually agreed" separation—corporate language for a relationship that had run its course.

Meanwhile, Meghan has invested her energy into As ever, a lifestyle brand selling jams, teas, candles, and other goods designed, in the company's words, to "elevate your everyday and inspire moments of joy." It is a modest enterprise compared to the streaming deals, but it is also one where she maintains direct creative control. The brand was initially supported by Netflix before that partnership ended in March. There is no indication it will cease when she crosses the Atlantic.

Branding experts see both opportunity and risk in the couple's return. Susan Fournier, a former Harvard Business School professor, warns that every major pivot a brand makes carries cost. "Every time a brand does a 180 like that, you can't go back," she said. The most successful celebrity brands, she notes, maintain consistency in their image and message. A return to the UK, after years of positioning themselves as independent American celebrities, risks looking like yet another reversal—another sign that the couple is still searching for an identity rather than embodying one.

There is, however, a potential opening. The Sussexes are believed to have spent time in the Cotswolds, an area of England known for its rolling countryside and concentration of wealthy residents. Laura Stoloff, an American stylist and creative director who divides her time between London and the Cotswolds, sees natural synergy between Meghan's lifestyle brand and the aesthetics of English country living. "There is still a lot of fascination with English country life, particularly in America," Stoloff told the BBC, "and she has the ability to bring that to a very large, global audience." A Cotswolds base could give As ever a clearer visual identity and narrative anchor—the kind of coherent positioning that has eluded the couple's previous ventures.

But Stephen offers a cautionary note: "A return to the UK could be a useful brand reset, but a postcode does not reposition a brand. Behaviour does." In other words, moving to the Cotswolds solves nothing if the couple continues to scatter their attention across unrelated projects. What they need, he suggests, is focus—a coherent portfolio of businesses and causes that actually reinforce one another rather than compete for attention. Whether they can achieve that remains to be seen. For now, the blackberry jam sits on shelves, a small artifact of a brand still in search of itself.