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Meghan Markle has launched her new business venture, American Riviera Orchard, but the company has already thrown up some questions over its Instagram account
Meghan Markle has launched her new lifestyle brand on Instagram, but the account has thrown up some questions.
The Duchess of Sussex debuted her new business on social media earlier this week. American Riviera Orchard is a lifestyle and cookery brand that will tie in with a new cooking show on Netflix.
Meghan has so far only posted the brand’s logo on Instagram, with no details about what fans can expect from her business. The bio for American Riviera Orchard states it was “established 2024” and is owned by Meghan. PR expert Ryan McCormick believes there are some issues with Meghan’s launch.
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Speaking exclusively to The Mirror, he said: “From a PR perspective, I don’t find the launch of American Riviera Orchard impressive in any capacity. The company’s Instagram page has over 518,000 followers. I’m highly suspicious that most of those followers are fake.
“Why? Aside from the fact that of a half-million people started following the account in such a short window, they don’t show the number of likes on each post.” Ryan pointed out how a lot of the users interacting with the posts haven’t uploaded anything themselves, adding: “This is a major red flag.”
The PR expert also said the company’s website could be improved. He explained: “When you go to American Riviera Orchard’s website is there a mission statement, a product line, anything about the company? No.
“There is a place where you can sign up for our email address.” Ryan added: “I think Meghan blew a big opportunity here. If she had products ready to do and then got all this attention, sales would probably be healthy.”
His comments come after American Riviera Orchard was targeted by online imposters. Imposter accounts have appeared on Instagram with the same name as the company.
The fake accounts have also created similar styles to Meghan’s content, mimicking the logo and typeface used. Several of the fake pages have already amassed up to 1,000 followers.
Ryan McCormick is a PR expert who spoke to The Mirror on behalf of Goldman McCormick PR.
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