by Thinus Ferreira
On Sunday, 8 March, just after having held a wonderful Netflix mixer event during the 8th Joburg Film Festival in Sandton, Netflix South Africa had a media premiere for the second season of One Piece at The Ostrich open-air event field near Philadelphia in Cape Town.
With some of the local actors and international stars flown in, Netflix's PR company Lucky 8 in South Africa did absolutely nothing to alert or communicate beforehand with several South African news media about the One Piece screening and fan event who would have done something, would have arranged interviews or would have, at the very least, been alerted and have liaised with Netflix about the show.
It's not the media's responsibility to know, with no information or communication, what is happening or what Netflix SA is doing or rolling out content-wise.
Netflix has a publicity division tasked to contact and communicate with media, and pays money to PR companies, like Lucky 8 (previously it was Eclipse Communications) in South Africa to actually liaise, partner with, and talk and communicate about Netflix content and media events, screenings and interviews.
Why is this not happening properly?
After covering the 8th Joburg Film Festival last week extensively for several media outlets, including going to the Netflix mixer event in Sandton, it was hugely disappointing to discover that suddenly Netflix had a One Piece event as a screening, fan event and media premiere, but that nobody from Netflix or Lucky 8 ever bothered to reach out to tell about it.
At the most bare-bones basic level, the expectation is that people paid to communicate should do so - in whatever area - to liaise about what opportunities exist to work together, what interviews may or may not be possible and for the media to know what is going on and happening.
Now Netflix and a PR company like Lucky 8 presumably want coverage for One Piece's second season filmed in Cape Town, South Africa at Cape Town Film Studios.
The big question is: How? From what? When?
How are journalists and media supposed to create something or coverage, or the type of coverage that works for their publications, and presumably for Netflix SA and Netflix globally, from out of nothing and no communication beforehand? No heads-up? No PR at all?
American actors like Julia Rehwald and Joe Manganiello, Callum Kerr from Scotland, and writer and producer Joe Tracz were in South Africa for Sunday's One Piece screening, alongside the South African actors appearing in episodes of this second season like Alan Foulis, Jazzara Jaslyn, Anton Jeftha, Aiden Scott and Ty Keogh, who portrays the character of Dalton.
Where (when?) was the One Piece season 2 press day for South Africa? Were there round-table interviews held? Where are all those interviews, assuming there were press opportunities?
What happened at Sunday's One Piece event? What was said there by whom, and the cast?
Somebody who did attend on Sunday told me Jeanne D was the MC.
On Monday morning, I asked publicist Sethu Colo at Lucky 8 about this, but a day later haven't heard back anything.
I also asked several other journalists and media in South Africa - also covering film and TV sphere - if they had ever heard anything from, or about the second season of One Piece, beforehand, or about the screening. They all said no.
Sadly, it's once again an opportunity lost for Netflix, for One Piece as a production and a show, as well as for South African media, to try and cover something where it's win-win-win, instead of lose-lose-lose.
