Royals show their fun sides to win hearts and minds for Jubilee

Prince Charles shows his skills on the wheels of steel at a youth centre in Toronto, resulting in great pictures and heart-warming applause from the yoof around him.

A few days earlier Charles presented the (atrocious) weather on BBC Scotland TV news. Again, great pictures of the Prince being human and having fun. A far cry from the stiff, distant man we saw in the Diana years.

Despite the loaded question, a follow-up Guardian survey asking ‘Did you cringe at Prince Charles’s weather forecast?’ resulted in a resounding three-quarters (78%) saying no.

Perhaps less successful – but a worthy PR attempt – was the Queen and Prince Philip making a splash in a Duck Boat.

Nothing can disguise Her Maj’s look of ‘fuck this for a laugh’. But, again, it’s a very human reaction that will do her no harm in PR terms.

But overall, the public is being gradually won over by some highly polished, sustained, strategic image-shifting work by the Jubilee PR team.

The key to it is the Royals working effectively as a cohesive PR unit, charming the union jack pants off us in coordinated volleys of set pieces – sometimes together, sometimes going solo – working this year’s one-off Jubilympics opportunity for everything it’s worth. Working it for themselves, working it for Great Britain Plc.

The likely end result for the Royal family?

By the end of 2012: a shoring up of their place in the public’s hearts, greater understanding of what the Royal’s exist for in our minds, and a warm glow of job satisafction for their hard working PR team.

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