by Thinus Ferreira
The latest season of Big Brother Mzansi ended on Sunday evening on MultiChoice's DStv with the 23-year-old Akhonamathemba Mbele, known as Sweet Guluva, who won the reality show but you wouldn't know it if it depended on Mzansi Magic's non-existent publicity effort.
The football player and barber from KwaZulu-Natal walked out of the camera-filled house on Sunday night as this season's R2 million winner produced by Red Pepper Pictures and sub-headlined "Big Brother Mzansi Umlilo".
By Tuesday morning there was still not even a press release about it from Mzansi Magic's publicist Portia Hlongwane or the Playmakers PR company that M-Net appointed and is paying to supposedly do PR and basic media liaison for this season of Big Brother Mzansi.
After taking the initiative to reach out and asking for a, or the, press release about the winner on Monday afternoon (since there was nothing by late Monday afternoon), there was absolutely no response from M-Net or Playmakers.
In addition, Mzansi Magic had Sweet Guluva and some other Big Brother Mzansi contestants at MultiChoice City in Randburg on Monday afternoon for a so-called "season 5 media event" and to do interviews.
Again, like just before the start of this season, and similar to the end of the previous season, once again M-Net's publicity people for Mzansi Magic and Playmakers did absolutely nothing to keep news media in the loop about it or that it would happen, apparently selecting to only communicate with a handful of people with just Twitter accounts and some other local media.
The result? Some social media postings suddenly on Monday afternoon but media left blindsided and clueless by Mzansi Media PR that something would happen, uninformed about what it entails, and unable to report about what was said.
Besides no press release, absolutely no transcript or anything of what was said by anyone on Monday afternoon exists, or was shared with media who were not at MultiChoice City and didn't know about it in advance in order to plan coverage or arrange anything for their news diaries.
It's the same modus operandi from the previous season where MultiChoice and M-Net's apparently decided to predominantly focus on so-called influencers and Johannesburg-only press, for a show on DStv that is shown across the whole of South Africa and even sub-Saharan Africa.
Of a Big Brother Mzansi Umlilo "house-stay" with a gaggle of around 30 people, including Mzansi Magic publicists, and which took place just before the season started, the majority of invited people ended up doing nothing with barely any registered coverage.
On Thursday afternoon last week, just before the start of the long weekend, Playmakers did communicate by email and informed that there would be a Big Brother Mzansi finale "watch party" at the Maracana Restaurant in Sandton on Sunday for Johannesburg media and social media influencers, which was fine and kept media in the loop as to what would happen on Sunday.
Why M-Net and Playmakers didn't want to do any proper communication effort and failed with post-finale media liaison is unclear. It does however echo the disastrous laissez-faire PR approach of the start of this season, and the way the post-finale of the previous Big Brother Mzansi season was also handled.
The Big Brother Mzansi Umlilo season was once again marred by scandal, like all previous seasons, inflicting brand damage on M-Net's Mzansi Magic and sponsors like Lottostar and Unilever's Robertson's Spices.
DStv broadcast sexual assault victim-shaming when Ashley Ogle and Bongiwe Booi, known as Bonni Bee, made shocking comments about fellow contestant Florence Mphirime, known as KayB, after she revealed that she was herself a victim of sexual assault.
Then M-Net and production company Red Pepper Pictures were forced to remove yet another contestant from MultiChoice's scandal-riddled Big Brother Mzansi franchise when KayB herself got evicted over sexual assault.
Big Brother Mzansi Umlilo was the fifth season under the Big Brother Mzansi moniker and the 11th season overall of Big Brother South Africa done by MultiChoice and M-Net in the country according to the Banijay format.
