This week we must pause and reflect upon the death of the greatest personal brand of them all, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

She is the most famous, trusted face on the planet.

Last year, The Express reported that the Queen’s brand is “greater than Nike, Ferrari and Pepsi” according to polling by TV producer Nick Bullen for a programme about the Royal Family and whether they are ‘worth it’ to the tax payer. Only tech titans like Apple, Amazon Google and Facebook had their heads in the clouds up there with Her Majesty. The Queen, according to his research, is 23 times bigger than the Beckhams and three times bigger than the Obamas when considering brand recognition and favourability.

The Netflix series The Crown fortunately and befittingly cast her in the most positive light and kept her legacy intact, for an even wider global audience.

In January 2020, a total of 73 million households worldwide had watched The Crown since it began in 2016.

The Crown Series four, infact, had 600,000 more viewers in its first week than Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s real wedding had in 1981 as 29 million globally tuned in.

Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer of Netflix said: “The Crown’s popularity grows with each new season”. It’s part of a “global cultural zeitgeist” he says.

The image of Queen Elizabeth II was mostly favourable throughout her years as a reigning monarch. Conservative in dress, she was well known for her solid-colour overcoats and matching hats, which allowed her to be seen easily in a crowd. A beacon. Our lighthouse.

She certainly called to me in New Zealand as a child, with her face emblazoned on all of the dollar notes, and stories of the Royal Family appearing in all of the women’s magazines all of the time.

Her steadfastness and constancy was an assurance for us all.

She united the polarising opposites of Britain as a nation like no other.

“Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl but she doesn’t have a lot to say,” said Sir Paul McCartney, who wrote this line in his Abbey Road album.

That was the mark of The Queen’s ability to remain a unifier and mother of the nation. She was near yet so far. She was aloof yet at our bedside reading a nighttime story.

As John Sergeant just pointed out, The Queen was never actually interviewed. Not even once.

And that ‘known unknowness’ was what allowed us all to project all of our emotions onto her.

This is a quality of the greatest, most enduring personalities.

She…