Meghan Markle is gifting her besties a single jar of jam

Each celeb got a jar of 1 of 50 strawberry jams in a bowl of lemons

Meghan Markle sent out 50 jars of her first offering from her new lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, the one with the fancy calligraphy title that’s both difficult to read and difficult to remember.

These influencers were then asked to post the gift in their main Instagram posts or in an Instagram story. An instagram story is fleetingly temporary and only lasts 24 hours, so they are counting on their followers seeing the story, before it is gone. They must not have been paid enough to put the post in their main Instagram posts. One of them, _HeartMom_ stopped all comments on the gift post because there were too many negative comments. She did leave all the positive comments on the post and deleted all the negative ones. I guess that’s one way to promote something, by suppressing anything that you don’t like. But to be fair she won’t allow any comments from anyone who isn’t following her, which is suppressing free speech but it’s her Instagram page and she can do what she wants, right? Seems a bit iffy to me.

Mindy Kaling said she was “obsessed” with the jam, despite never having tasted it. Others said they loved the jam, again, without having tasted it. Some of the jam jars labels are coming off the glass.

This promotion seems to lack any substance. The ‘friends’ and influencers were only gifted one jam jar, which seems a bit stingy to me. I know it’s supposed to show the exclusiveness of the jam but it doesn’t have that effect. And if it’s that exclusive, it means it is going to be really expensive which limits her target market. Then the influencers not posting it on their Instagram wall, mostly their stories shows they are not really fans, but rather they were paid to do this and the only one with it on their wall, blocks negative comments. Doesn’t seem like a well thought out marketing strategy to me.

I do like the light coloured label, the cloth and twine on top but that font is atrociously difficult to read or remember. I do not know who advised her but they advised her very badly.

There’s already so many celebrities with their lifestyle brands and products, so will this one be able to compete with them given Meghan is very divisive – people either love or dislike her. Are there going to be enough people to love her enough to buy her products and make it a profitable endeavour?

Also to note that it’s unlikely any of the skinny influencers that were gifted the jam actually eat jam. It’s full of simple carbs and sugar. They’re all super skinny and would not be caught eating jam or white bread like Delfina had on her Instagram post. It was just a marketing thing. She probably gave it to her husband or whoever else was in the house – maybe the cleaning staff?

What do you think? Are you going to buy this seemingly really expensive jam? Do you think it’s going to live up to its hype? Or like me, do you think ‘meh’?