It laughable but true: Amazon Prime Video - that depends on the internet to work - has its PR agency in South Africa that is repping the subscription video-on-demand service (SVOD), sending out old press releases about Amazon Studios, seemingly under the wrong impression that South Africans don't have access to the same internet for news and that the South African press covering television and TV critics are stupid.
On Wednesday 1 August, Gillian Gamsey International Communications (GGI South Africa) thought it good to issue a press release to the South African media covering news about TV, about what Amazon Prime Video announced programming-wise at the latest Television Critics Association (TCA) 2018 Press Tour in America.
Nothing wrong with that, except that it was all old - like last week's stale and mouldy bread taken out of the bread bin.
The old news Gillian Gamsey International Communications sent to South Africa's TV critics were literally several days old - already read by South African journalists and the public on American sites easily accessible worldwide at the same time as reports are published on the internet, and even already written about and published locally.
Here came out-of-touch GGISA, going "find all the exciting announcement you might have missed".
Mmm. The big irony is that maybe journalists that missed it, or some of it, missed it because Gillian Gamsey International Communications isn't able to actually issue the same Amazon Prime Video press material to the South African at the same time as when Amazon Prime Video hands it out to the American press.
Not all South African TV critics and journalists are stupid and any journalist worth his or her salt or proper publication isn't going to rehash old news days later that were already made public on 28 July.
In my humble opinion Amazon Prime Video and Gillian Gamsey International Communications SA really need to catch a serious wake-up and stop with old and irrelevant press releases that someone presumably took time to reheat but isn't going to get any traction or press coverage.
To make things even worse is that Gillian Gamsey International Communications SA wouldn't even change (doesn't even care?) to at least change and update press releases.
How on earth do you issue a days old press release sent to media on 28 July and still in it go "Amazon Studios today announced it has greenlit the", and "Amazon Studios today announced" and "Today at the Television Critics Association (TCA) Summer 2018 Press Tour"?
Some people do read. And some journalists who take their work seriously, kinda do actually read news and keep on top of it immediately when it happens.
Amazon Prime Video that competes with the likes of other SVOD services like Netflix's Netflix South Africa, Showmax and pay-TV services like MultiChoice's DStv and M-Net will really need to do better when it comes to PR around content announcements and programming information.
Sending out old, irrelevant press releases days later, when everyone have access to and use the same internet worldwide, simply doesn't cut it - not in America and not in South Africa.
