Queen of Cool
In a Jubilee tribute like no other you will read, Britain’s leading style critic explains how Her Majesty created the greatest – and most durable – brand the world has ever seen
MORE than one billion people will watch the Queen next weekend in her joyous Jubilee moment, the most ambitious live performance ever enacted on water as her 1,000-vessel armada sails down the Thames.
And it leaves me in awe because amid this pomp and pageantry, the overriding image flashed around the world will simply be of a little old lady, dressed in the same style that she has adopted for the past six decades.
It is a breathtaking achievement of style and substance to have become a figure more recognisable than Mao, Madonna or any other living person. The Queen is the greatest popular figure and the Jubilee celebrations will be the greatest Pop Art event of all time.
If she had met Andy Warhol, the godfather of Pop Art, in a bizarre way the two might have found much in common. Warhol called his Manhattan studio ‘The Factory’ as an ironic gesture to his industrialisation of art. Her Majesty has ‘The Firm’, an ironic gesture to the profession-alisation of the Royal Family.
It’s amusing to report that, in terms of the planet’s attention – of bums on seats, of eyes glued to screens – The Firm makes Warhol’s Factory, the most successful art project of the 20th Century, look amateurish.
Pop Art recognised and traded in modern icons. Icon is an abused term, but for once appropriate here. Iconic suggests permanence with a hint of religious veneration. These are exactly the qualities under discussion.
Warhol recognised this long ago. In 1985, he paid tribute to the Queen in a set of prints in his trademark Marilyn Monroe style. It is not known whether Her Majesty was amused, but a point had been conceded.
There’s more the two have in common. Surprised by the push or pull of destiny, Warhol and the Queen each assumed an identity they were not born with. Ondrej Warhola Junior invented the brittle Warhol persona to escape a clutch of nasty demons.
HRH Princess Elizabeth of York perhaps never expected to be Queen, but accepted a life-changing translation from cute Lilibet to awe-inspiring ‘Your Majesty’ without a ripple of inelegant dissent.
WARHOL, with signature trashy irony, said in future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. Queen Elizabeth has been famous for more than 60 years, during which media treatments of her identity have ranged from Pietro Annigoni’s saccharine oil paintings, via Warhol, to YouTube. Meanwhile, Warhol’s time might soon be up.
Fame that lasts 60 years is special. The more so now we can see that the life cycle of great organisations is getting ever shorter. General Motors dominated its sector for half a century, Sony for 30 years, Nokia for 20 and Facebook perhaps for less time still.
Peerless, uncontaminated, possibly even enlarging, 60 years of the Queen’s fame demands not just respect but a measure of cool analysis. If we could run businesses the way the Queen manages herself, there would be less talk of austerity and more of growth.
Viewed in terms of branding, the Queen is exceptional. To use the trade jargon, she does not need to benchmark her rivals. She is the only benchmark there is. If you did market research, you would find that she achieves the highest scores in brand-recognition surveys everywhere from Wisbech to Okinawa.
The Queen avoids every vulgar trap of here-today celebrity. As John Updike once observed: ‘Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.’ The Queen’s facial composure is absolute. Why? Because she neither panders nor condescends, but treats her market not, perhaps, as equals, but not as stupid either.
The Queen should be a case study in business schools. Although certain members of The Firm have experienced swoops and dives of popular esteem (just as members of Warhol’s Factory from time to time overdosed, got shot or went to jail), the Queen’s own reputation remains undimmed.
With every minor lapse of a minor Royal, Her Majesty’s own brand values seem only to get firmer and brighter. So, for a nation sometimes struggling with modern business realities, there are important lessons, both moral and commercial, here.
In product terms, the way it would be discussed in a sales seminar in an airport hotel, the Queen is that most unusual of things: effortlessly superpremium, while exciting unusual demand. This is a magnificent incongruity she shares with Audi: being both extremely popular and high prestige.
Like Coca-Cola, the Queen is authentic and consistent – Coke presents straightforward, unambiguous messages to an eager world. Like Picasso, she is known by one name (and her signature) alone.
Then there is the matter of personal style. The Queen is always meticulously presented, but makes no lowering concessions to fashion. Her Majesty is above the porno-dynamic of the schmutter trade.
There is a story that Margaret Thatcher once called to check there would be no embarrassing duplication of frocks on a special night. The answer came back: ‘Don’t worry, Prime Minister, Her Majesty never notices what other people are wearing.’ Not, I think, a put-down; just a statement of beautiful, uncontaminated authority.
Like any market leader, the Queen understands her customers and speaks to them. In matters of taste, she is no radical, but then how embarrassing would it be if Her Majesty habituated Hoxton dive bars or competed with (the wonderful) Vivienne Westwood in attempts to make the bourgeoisie blush?
Instead, an aura of inimitability presides. When asked a question about taste by a fashionable decorator, the regal reply came: ‘I don’t think it helps.’ Implication? We are absolute, not relative.
BUT just as Coke has a secret formula, so Her Majesty is very good at stopping light falling on to magic. Her allure and apparently intimate connection to a customer base are maintained precisely because of distance and mystery.
Anticipating next week’s spectacle, be aware that very few global products – Apple perhaps briefly – enjoy the same uncritical esteem as the Queen.
Regarding image management, branding, customer-relationships and market penetration, there is more to be learnt from studying HM on a barge on the Thames than from some degrees in media studies.
Maybe the Queen should be on the National Curriculum. Not so we can all become courtiers or supine monarchists; just so we can all become rather more successful at doing business.
And do you know what this amounts to? The Queen is the quintessence of cool. She is cool because she is interested in no such thing. Only fools and poseurs want to be cool. The mere wanting i mmediately disqualifies you.
Her Majesty’s disdain for flash and refusal to be excited by sudden events, combined with absolute poise and subtle humour, are immensely attractive.
No matter what, the Queen retains an indestructible personal popularity. Add a measure of stamina rigorously tested in global markets and you will see that if HM were a product, she would be a bestseller. Actually, she has been for 60 years. That’s not a claim Cadillac can make.
Consistent, cool, uncompromised, authentic. These are attractive qualities any brand manager would kill for.
And what is a brand? It’s the mixture of associations and expectations successful products possess.
Think about this as the pageant proceeds on its choppy path downstream. In the best possible sense, the Queen is a bestseller. She is Pop Art. She is a great advertisement. For herself. And, of course, for us.