by Thinus Ferreira
If you don't know about the existence of the new South African filmed fantasy drama series In Your Dreams on Amazon Prime Video, whether it's good, worth your time watching, worth your money paying or subscribing to Amazon Prime Video, don't know what it's about, how it was created or are clueless about anything around it, you're not alone.
And it's not your fault.
Blame the clearly disinterested Amazon Studios team in South Africa making content they apparently don't really feel you need to see or have put any real effort in in promoting, as well as Amazon Prime Video's shoulder-shrugging level of publicity.
The fantasy drama series produced by Motion Story was released last week on 24 November but Amazon Studios and Amazon Prime Video - although a South African production - did basically little more than nothing to get media buy-in and to promote it under the South African press beforehand.
Either In Your Dreams is terribly bad with horrible production values (we don't know since nobody has actually watched it, given the absence of comprehensive reviews), with no digital screeners made available to the media (despite asking).
Or, Amazon Prime Video doesn't see the need or know how to promote a local production properly when it comes to PR.
Amazon Studios and Amazon Prime Video couldn't be bothered to tell the media that In Your Dreams was commissioned when it was (likely in 2022 or early in 2023), or that filming had started when it did.
In mid-October, Ten x Collective, the PR agency currently repping Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Studios in South Africa, sent out the first of what was eventually just two press releases, to suddenly "announce" the existence of In Your Dreams.
By mid-October, In Your Dreams had already been filmed and production completed.
By the way, In Your Dreams is also Amazon's "first South African scripted series". Yes. It's first - but there's a clear lack of excitement about this so-called "first scripted series". No buzz, no set visits while it was filming, no liaising and asking media if they're interested in doing interviews while the show was actually being made. Just nothing.
Amazon, right off the bat, treated In Your Dreams in terms of PR as some already-discarded, trashily-made TV, not worth media attention, and signalled that through what I can only call lukewarm media interaction.
A month later in mid-November - literally just four days before the debut of In Your Dreams - suddenly there was an email blast on 20 November (as the second and last press release) which noted that In Your Dreams would be making its debut on 24 November.
This is simply not how proper publicity for a TV show or any TV show works, or is supposed to work.
Four days for the media to now ... what? Scramble for interviews? Scramble to try and find time to request screeners and to try and watch it, or trying to find out what might be happening with a show in terms of access, interviews and whatever else?
Although with basically no time left, I asked Ten x Collective if digital screeners would be available in order to watch and review In Your Dreams. (I was told it would be requested, but nothing came of it at all and it never happened. As of yet - and now too late - I haven't seen anything of this show.)
I also asked (why do I have to ask?) Ten x Collective if there would be any media engagement happening? Why must media ask?
Any publicity effort of any TV show worth its salt and value with be responsive and upfront and reach out to media before they have to ask, to explain exactly what will be happening around a show - especially a South African production - and go through what is available, or happening, and ask media whether they want to partake in something, want to do a set visit, or are interested in roundtable or one-on-one interviews or whatever else opportunities might exist.
With In Your Dreams - just like the atrociously badly done "media launch" of Amazon Prime Video's Nigerian nonsense around Gangs of Lagos - Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Studios in Africa utterly failed in my opinion to do an acceptable level of standard PR for a TV show that was made in South Africa and to involve the media.
Last week Wednesday or Thursday night (who knows?) Amazon Prime Video held a "screening" or "event" (who knows what it's called or should properly be called) in (Johannesburg?) for In Your Dreams for (who knows? influencers?) with the In Your Dreams cast.
Were there any photos for the media (who were not invited or told about it beforehand) or sent automatically to media of what happened there? Nope.
Were there any transcripts or recordings of what was said there by the cast or the producers which could be used for possible stories and reporting and coverage? Again, nope.
No In Your Dreams press drop. No series of press releases right from commission to launch to fully tell its making-of story. No phone calls. No emails to gauge potential interest from the media. No episodic pics or episode synopses.
What is this utter mess? Why again so bad? Why the disrespect for a South African-made show and Amazon's purported "first South African scripted show"?
This is definitely not just an Amazon problem but in my opinion Amazon is clearly part of the broader problem when it comes to proper TV show PR for South African shows.
Amazon can pay for and have advertising banners up at all of South Africa's major airports for Amazon Prime Video, but if it can't properly communicate and work with the media and engage journalists to help tell the story of its content, it will continue to face a big uphill battle in getting consumers and potential consumers and TV viewers to engage with, and to watch its content offering.
The publicity effort around Amazon's In Your Dreams in South Africa is disrespectful and simply not good enough, or fails to understand the needs of the press, or to ask the needs of the press, and to provide a sufficient standardised response to that which yields a win-win for Amazon, the show and the media.
I feel bad for the In Your Dreams cast, crew and production company who all deserved much - much! - better than this pathetic and poorly done publicity attempt.
