A Royal Rant-ish!

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Let me start by saying I don’t have a particularly strong feeling either way about our Monarchy. I don’t think I am a Royalist, or particularly anti-establishment, I’ve kind of just always accepted they were there.  I remember when Princess Diana died; my mum and dad were babysitting for a cousin I think, so we had a baby in the house.  It sticks in my head, I can picture it.

I remember when Prince William and Britney Spears were rumoured to be writing to each other or something, or maybe I’m misremembering.  Anyway, my point is, as far as I’m concerned, they’ve always just been there, a part of the fabric of life, another “celebrity” for the tabloids to try to embarrass.

But this whole Royal Wedding thing is pretty crazy.  I was prompted to write this blog after receiving yet another email from a company riding on the coat tails of a young couple’s special day to try and sell me red white and blue “crap”.  I wasn’t born when Charles and Diana got married in 1981 so I don’t have anything to compare it with, and of course, email wasn’t around then (and for the geekier friends of mine who might try to catch me out, I obviously mean in it’s current prevalent form!) so email marketing had yet to be thought up.  But I feel a little bit like marketing has gone mad!

I know that marketers like to have something to “hook” their sales into, there are many holidays throughout the year that have become so totally commercialised, and you can get advertising material for them all.  Intellectually I understand this, but the number of emails I’ve got offering me “limited edition” this, that or the other seems to have gone mad.  You may say, I open myself up to it by allowing marketing emails, and I guess I do, but I like special offers, I like competitions and I like money off, so I’ll keep allowing emails to be sent.

I just feel weird about the whole thing. I even found myself suggesting my company use the wedding in some of our own communications… I was shocked and a bit disappointed if I’m honest, with myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I am super excited to get an extra day off – who would sniff at that? I can’t really even describe why this has riled me so.  Companies have every right to try and sell their products in any way they deem appropriate, but it all just feels so tacky, for want of a better word.

As I said, I don’t know what it was like when Charles married Diana, I know there were commemorative goodies galore, but did supermarkets have “Royal Wedding Sales” or did Boots offer a “Limited Edition Royal Wedding Lipstick”? Am I missing the point? Should I be running around buying up Royal Wedding goodies, planning my viewing for the day? I’ve got tickets for a comedy gig that night, should I be going to a street party?

What do you think? Will you be partaking of the special limited edition products? Or does it all just feel a bit commercial?