Thinus Ferreira
Imagine the very nasty surprise coming from people working in communication and PR (and getting paid to Communicate!), when Disney South Africa and its PR company Clockwork on Friday afternoon at 15:23 sent out an email blast about a media event it had, apparently "last night".
To try and promote a new American drama series, Disney and Clockwork, in my opinion, came across as lazy and utterly tone deaf, appearing completely clueless as to just how self-serving, disingenuous, incompetent and lazy what it did, and what it sent out afterwards, would read to receivers.
Perhaps it has happened to you: You're good or great friends with someone (or you think you're friends with someone - part of the shock is the realisation that it was all "pretend" and fake).
Now, let's presume you're possibly connected on something, let's say Facebook.
On a Monday morning, you open Facebook and see that said friend got engaged or got married. It really happened, because there are the "proudly displayed" photos ... with this person ( who is you're supposed friend) and your other friends.
So , not only were you not told beforehand, you didn't know until the shock of seeing the photos.
And adding insult to emotional injury - the other "friends" of that friend not only knew, they were actually invited and attended.
In the past, when this happened to me, I have instantly ended "friendships" - friends and friendships that clearly were never that and things where I had a certain expectation and thought we were on a certain relationship level, when clearly the other person didn't feel that way or simply didn't care.
Now The Walt Disney Company Africa and its PR agency Clockwork Media, in my opinion, pulled one of these types of things in the way they failed to properly communicate - and then had the audacity, like lazy real estate agents, to simply send out an email blast, sit back and then presumably expect and want - what? Coverage for the event?
It's like having an engagement party, or a wedding, not telling or inviting "friends" you're supposedly "friends" with, and then afterwards expecting some engagement or wedding gift.
Personally, I find it tasteless and ridiculous.
Rochelle Knock is replacing and taking over from Christine Service as boss of Disney Africa in South Africa from December. Wouldn't it have been nice, normal and an opportunity to have Rochelle be introduced to media?
What really irks me beyond measure is that when public liaison and public relations between PR and media simply degenerate into a performative chase with presumably the laziest and lowest common denominator effort - but yet still expecting results - the result, like in this thoughtless case, almost cannot result in anything other than a trash outcome and setting relations backwards.
How on earth do you engage with media, who you didn't communicate with beforehand, and didn't invite to your event, or didn't literally speak to, to explain beforehand what would be happening, suddenly afterwards and then in a careless, thoughtless and frankly bad manner?
Imagine you got engaged but your friends all really mattered - that it wasn't transactional, superficial and fake but you wanted to, in a high EQ way, signal that you really valued your friend or friends?
No need to Google the proper answer: Of course you would speak to them, you would communicate, you would explain to them beforehand, since you know they would see photos of your engagement on Monday.
You would say something like: "Hi, I'm getting engaged and I'm having an engagement party. I want to tell you that we're friends, that we will always be friends, but we don't have a lot of money, we're just going to do a very small engagement party with a few family members and family friends I must have there, but I want you to know that you matter, that we will still hang out, and that I appreciate you in my life."
Unfortunately, Disney and Clockwork didn't do any of that.
In my humble opinion, it doesn't just damage what media now won't do about All's Fair and how they won't cover, watch or even come near it.
It goes much deeper: It damages what level of relationship there is (or was, or maybe even wasn't) between Disney, its PR company and the media.
Just like friends(hips), media who discovered afterwards and were only then told by Clockwork and Disney that there was an All's Fair media event (that they didn't even know about and were not invited to), will now reevaluate and recalibrate.
Media will now, when they think of Disney and Disney South Africa, consciously and unconsciously, change the "grade" they assign to the relationship. And believe me, speaking as a journalist: This grade won't be adjusted upwards.
What are media - who were not told Disney would be having an All's Fair media event at LUX Sandton in Johannesburg, and who were not invited or at least told beforehand so that they can still plan some type of coverage - now supposed to do afterwards? On a Friday afternoon? At 3pm?
On a Friday afternoon at 15:23 media are suddenly and belatedly sent photos of an event they were not at - to now do what with exactly? Publish? To promote it with hashtags to serve as a "wedding gift" for a wedding that they didn't matter enough for to be told would happen?
Hugely ironic is the purple phone and framed page at the event that had Thando Thabethe as the host, nothing: "Tell us what you will never settle for".
Well, Disney, well Clockwork, in my personal opinion, the media will never settle for no communication, bad communication, belated communication, fake communication, pandering PR, one-size-fits-all generic email blasts after events and superficial, purely transactional relationships.
Real effort, real communication, real relationship building and real public relations and liaison are required for real engagement - and this awful All's Fair non-interaction nonsense from Disney South Africa is definitely not it for me.
The people at the actual event were shown All's Fair.
Question: How about interacting, doing actual work and reaching out to media whose work it is to actually watch stuff like this, to hear if they would like to get a screener? Why were they not helped to actually see All's Fair before TX?
Why were only people attending shown All's Fair and given access?
Apparently, Samira Gerin-Singh, integrated marketing manager for Disney+ Africa, attended and spoke at Disney's All's Fair event.
It's however impossible to report on what Samira said to the guests or what she did - or whoever else spoke and what they said - since Disney and Clockwork didn't bother to either alert that there would be something where people were going to speak, or to share any kind of audio or transcript afterwards, or even include quotes in the belated press release.
Again: What is the expectation for coverage from the media afterwards?
What do you want from me, as a journalist, when you send me photos of how you had a party, that you didn't bother to tell me would happen, after it happened, and now want me to jump on a Friday afternoon at 15:23?
Fair is definitely what I feel Disney SA's All's Fair flameout was not and a level of terrible communication that I will never settle for.
