+

+

Not pleased.

Pleasing is hella shady; between the ownership, the timelines, the odd promotional choices, it's confusing. These are some of the things I'm stuck on.

On the back end of the business side:

- Pleasing, the trademark, was registered in April 2021 in the US, two days after Jeffrey Azoff's subsidiary Empty Leg, LP was registered in the State of Delaware. Jeffrey also owns the entity Emptyleg Manager, LLC

- Emptyleg Manager II, LLC entity is owned by someone named Osborn Curry; will update as we find more info UPDATE Osborn Curry works under THE AZOFF MUSIC COMPANY LLC. Both entities are confirmed owned by the Azoff family.

-Pleasing, the trademark was registered in the UK in May 2021 by Emptyleg, LP.

- Pleased As Holdings Limited was registered in May 2021 in the UK, by Harry Styles, and lists himself and his assistant Emma as directors. Erksine Records owns all the shares to Pleased As

- Pleasing websites were registered in June 2021

-Note: Pleasing is not an actual company at this point in time. It is solely a trademark registered by Emptyleg, LP in the US and UK. On Pleasing’s website, they call the entity that houses Pleasing, DBA Pleasing. DBA stands for “Doing Business As” which allows a company to operate under an alias.

As far as promotion, I think we've all been confused.

- Pleasing digital billboards dropping after Harry's Arizona show with very little fanfare, and the billboards showing up in London

- Pleasing.com going live at 3 am NY/ midnight LA time with zero promotion which is unusual for a celebrity launching any sort of brand. Guerrilla marketing is common (think about Lights Up promo) but this feels different

- Pleasing Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter accounts go live the day after, each platform sharing different images, mission statements, and information about the brand and products

- The business is listed as a lifestyle brand on Instagram, rather than a cosmetics or retail brand, which is unusual for a brand like this (compare Rihanna or Kim's brands)

- Pleasing has been advertising a taco nail truck in LA with no build-up or fanfare and deleting all previous tweets the day after. At the time I'm posting this, Pleasing has 200k followers, 5 days after launching

- Harry Styles himself has not addressed Pleasing verbally until Pleasing promotion went live with the Dazed cover and Instagram video that he narrated of someone painting his nails

- The Dazed photoshoot. Call me crazy, but if the intention of the shoot was to launch Pleasing ... said, why did we get a high fashion editorial of Harry with his nails only visible (not even on display) for 2 out of the 13 pictures?

- Harry’s face and name aren’t on the Pleasing website, only his hands, which … sure

- I can't even talk about the print interview. As much as I love Harry and believe him when he says wallpaper is an inspiration, so much of that article was an HSHQ advertisement for all his projects. It didn't feel much like a conversation with a human being

- The press packs being sent out are confusing to me, also. I'm surprised no one is commenting on how bizarre it is that Harry Lambert is the driving force behind the promotion and the press packs, and how everyone seems to be thanking him and Molly Hawkins, designer of the horrific 360 HSLOT stage. Many people are also thanking Jeffrey Azoff and the Tommys, both the hot one and the other one

Now, I have a lot of thoughts. Most of them revolve around this being an Azoff driven business venture given the current state of company ownership, lack of clarity of how involved Harry is as an owner/investor comes into play when we consider who is promoting Pleasing.

Last week I said to some people that it seemed like this seemed like a Lambert/Azoff collaborative effort more than a Harry Styles passion project. Harry's lack of involvement with the promotion, let alone him not verbally talking about Pleasing.

Given Harry Lambert and Molly, along with Jeffrey and his Full Stop Management business partners, are being thanked in all the promotional messages from people receiving the press packages who, oddly enough, are all Full Stop or Lambert connected, are interesting to me.

Throw in Harry Lambert going live on Instagram and talking about "our" launch, and now Live Nation, another Azoff business venture, sending out promotional emails for Pleasing, this is unusual.

I have a lot of thoughts about how Harry seems to be in an ambassador role for Pleasing, much like he is with Gucci, seeing as he's only really shown up in the merch and the ads, and hasn't spoken about this as a passion.

If anything, I am wondering if this idea started with Full Stop Management, and they registered Pleased As as a way of connecting Harry to Pleasing, without explicitly having him state this was something he wanted to do. It seems like they have let the fandom do what we do best, which is fill in the gaps and make our own assumptions. Harry wears nail polish = Harry registers and company to make and sell them; except, he's never actually said this.

The mission statement, talking about 'community' is quite vague. It looks like they are alluding to the LGBTQIA+ community, but in true Full Stop Management style, they don't want to acknowledge us outright. I personally find the timing of Harry posting a rainbow on his Instagram for the first time in three years right before the Pleasing launch a little off ...

I'm sure I'm missing heaps, but these are my current thoughts. I'll add more as people smarter than I help me realize things, and realize stuff.

Credit to my big brain besties @alwaysyousunflower @finewallsline28 @fwweaky

Is it linked to this? IDK. https://jayjeebee.tumblr.com/post/663450748271673344

Make it make sense?

LOVE ON TOUR, 2021. STYLE. (x)