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In the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Nando’s wanted to find ways to stay close to our family and friends even when they couldn’t enjoy our products. We knew we needed to communicate authentically, staying true to our voice at a time when many other brands were silent.
We wanted to be a voice of hope in a sea of worry by bringing a smile to the faces of South Africans. We also wanted to provide tangible support, not only to our staff and franchise partners, but to vulnerable communities in SA as well.
As lockdown eased, we sought ways to innovate by bringing the country’s favourite chicken to people in new and safer channels. We also had a responsibility to inform our customers about the precautions we were taking to make them feel safe and to help them understand how they could get their peri peri-fix in ways that they might not have tried before.
The thinking
Lockdown restrictions meant we couldn’t trade, and even as channels began to open up across the restaurant industry, our trading capacity was limited.
Nando ’s serves food as fresh as possible so we had a sizeable amount of food that we couldn’t sell. To allow this food to expire and have to destroy it seemed like a criminal act. We could not let that happen when so many vulnerable South Africans were not receiving enough to eat on a daily basis.
Our challenges were therefore how to reach people with messages of hope and keep the brand relevant in their lives, and how to support vulnerable South Africans as a home-grown brand lodged in the hearts of the nation.
The application
To tackle the first challenge, we turned to our engaged and sizeable online community. With a strong reputation in tactical communication and social media community engagement, we selected digital media as the right place to communicate with our most loyal customers.
We fired up communication in two ways. First, we started at home. We aligned our narrative to support good behaviour and encouraged people to adapt to embrace safe protocols as we turned off our grills for the first time since 1987. We did this through a video we wrote, produced and edited within 48 hours where Nando’s founder Robbie Brozin shared a message of hope and encouraged our
Nandocas (who then shared this with hundreds of thousands of South Africans) to stay safe and stay home. This video was shared by our Nando’s community on their own personal socials and via our agency partners, friends and areas of influence in an entirely organic way.
Second, we shared a spicy tactical social media post which advocated good hygiene by using a well-known competitor slogan that had just been globally suspended. The post read, “Turn s out, finger licking isn’t good”, which the brand subsequently removed from all their advertising material.
We acknowledged that the sudden and extensive changes to people’s circumstances meant that we were developing a new language thanks to the new behaviours we had to introduce into our lives as South Africans. So we developed a COVIDictionary of words inspired by conversations related to lockdown behaviour in SA. We released words like Ramapunctual (when making important decisions takes time) and Skhokhorona (revered title of those who stay home during lockdown).
We also had a look at our technology development plans and prioritised a method to serve South Africans through the launch of a brand-new means of ordering and collecting Nando’s. Lockdown provided an opportunity to drive some technological innovation and adaptation, becoming the first restaurant in SA to launch Kerbside Collection as well as enhancing the way the brand interacted with customers through technology.
Through Kerbside Collection (affectionately nicknamed ZwakalaSokulethela — “you come to us and we bring it to you”), customers are given the option to order and pay through the Nando’s mobile app or website, drive to their local Nando ’s, and have their food brought to their car on a tray as they wait in a specially demarcated parking area at no extra cost, thereby avoiding delivery fees. We think of it as drive-to rather than drive-thru.
Nando ’s built the kerbside functionality into their app and website in just a few weeks, but we have since added features to the app that enhance the experience such as voice ordering through the search function and the ability to watch some of those famous Nando’s ads while you wait for your food.
We got special permission to open a limited number of our restaurants for the sole purpose of cooking meals to give away to vulnerable communities. We involved other restaurant industry partners whom we nicknamed the Frenemies, in the form of McDonald’s and KFC, to work together with us to feed these communities.
We partnered with Joint Aid Management (JAM), an NGO licensed to distribute our warm meals, and invited the Frenemies to join us in this feeding scheme to make a positive impact. We shared this news through our social media and PR channels using the hashtag #StreetwisePERi-PERiMcBurger.
Taking this act of charity to the next level, we customised our mobile app to give people the chance to purchase Nando’s vouchers that they could redeem as soon as restaurants were once again open.
Nando ’s then used its vouchering capability to raise money for the Solidarity Fund, a public benefit organisation with a mandate to support the national health response and contribute to humanitarian relief efforts as South Africans fight against Covid-19.
The vouchering initiative allowed Nando’s customers to contribute to the fund because for every voucher purchased, Nando’s contributed 10 times the value of any voucher bought and donated this to the Solidarity Fund.
The impact
During the Covid-19 lockdown period, Nando’s generated a total advertising value equivalent of R22,657,272 through more than 200 pieces of organic coverage.
We cooked over R1m worth of Nando ’s food, saving it from going to waste and partnering with 156 organisations around the country, including orphanages, homeless shelters, old age homes and places of safety for women and children with a total of 52,840 meals. In addition, we provided food parcels and education kits for kids in our own backyard in Lorentzville to the value of R3m.
Through the vouchering initiative Nando’s raised more than R1m for the Solidarity Fund.
The effect
It was not any SA brand’s intention to divert entirely from their plan for the year, but every smart brand did just that. It takes courage to let go of your intentions at a time when they are no longer relevant. We headed down an entirely different road from the one we planned to go down this year, and we are proud to have achieved several firsts through this agility.
We partnered with our competitors for the first time in history, pulling together as key members of the restaurant industry to support South Africans during very tough times. We built and launched a brand-new channel in the form of Kerbside Collection within a few weeks, and were first to offer this as a means for customers to collect their Nando’s orders without leaving the safety and comfort of their vehicles. We found ways of being relevant and present in the lives of our customers even when we couldn’t serve them.
We were reminded that investing in brand-building and community engagement gives you ready eyes and ears when you have something important and serious to say, and to elicit an engaging and heartfelt response across a nation.
Nando's
2020 Financial Mail AdFocus Profile
The premise
In the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Nando’s wanted to find ways to stay close to our family and friends even when they couldn’t enjoy our products. We knew we needed to communicate authentically, staying true to our voice at a time when many other brands were silent.
We wanted to be a voice of hope in a sea of worry by bringing a smile to the faces of South Africans. We also wanted to provide tangible support, not only to our staff and franchise partners, but to vulnerable communities in SA as well.
As lockdown eased, we sought ways to innovate by bringing the country’s favourite chicken to people in new and safer channels. We also had a responsibility to inform our customers about the precautions we were taking to make them feel safe and to help them understand how they could get their peri peri-fix in ways that they might not have tried before.
The thinking
Lockdown restrictions meant we couldn’t trade, and even as channels began to open up across the restaurant industry, our trading capacity was limited.
Nando ’s serves food as fresh as possible so we had a sizeable amount of food that we couldn’t sell. To allow this food to expire and have to destroy it seemed like a criminal act. We could not let that happen when so many vulnerable South Africans were not receiving enough to eat on a daily basis.
Our challenges were therefore how to reach people with messages of hope and keep the brand relevant in their lives, and how to support vulnerable South Africans as a home-grown brand lodged in the hearts of the nation.
The application
To tackle the first challenge, we turned to our engaged and sizeable online community. With a strong reputation in tactical communication and social media community engagement, we selected digital media as the right place to communicate with our most loyal customers.
We fired up communication in two ways. First, we started at home. We aligned our narrative to support good behaviour and encouraged people to adapt to embrace safe protocols as we turned off our grills for the first time since 1987. We did this through a video we wrote, produced and edited within 48 hours where Nando’s founder Robbie Brozin shared a message of hope and encouraged our
Nandocas (who then shared this with hundreds of thousands of South Africans) to stay safe and stay home. This video was shared by our Nando’s community on their own personal socials and via our agency partners, friends and areas of influence in an entirely organic way.
Second, we shared a spicy tactical social media post which advocated good hygiene by using a well-known competitor slogan that had just been globally suspended. The post read, “Turn s out, finger licking isn’t good”, which the brand subsequently removed from all their advertising material.
We acknowledged that the sudden and extensive changes to people’s circumstances meant that we were developing a new language thanks to the new behaviours we had to introduce into our lives as South Africans. So we developed a COVIDictionary of words inspired by conversations related to lockdown behaviour in SA. We released words like Ramapunctual (when making important decisions takes time) and Skhokhorona (revered title of those who stay home during lockdown).
We also had a look at our technology development plans and prioritised a method to serve South Africans through the launch of a brand-new means of ordering and collecting Nando’s. Lockdown provided an opportunity to drive some technological innovation and adaptation, becoming the first restaurant in SA to launch Kerbside Collection as well as enhancing the way the brand interacted with customers through technology.
Through Kerbside Collection (affectionately nicknamed Zwakala Sokulethela — “you come to us and we bring it to you”), customers are given the option to order and pay through the Nando’s mobile app or website, drive to their local Nando ’s, and have their food brought to their car on a tray as they wait in a specially demarcated parking area at no extra cost, thereby avoiding delivery fees. We think of it as drive-to rather than drive-thru.
Nando ’s built the kerbside functionality into their app and website in just a few weeks, but we have since added features to the app that enhance the experience such as voice ordering through the search function and the ability to watch some of those famous Nando’s ads while you wait for your food.
We got special permission to open a limited number of our restaurants for the sole purpose of cooking meals to give away to vulnerable communities. We involved other restaurant industry partners whom we nicknamed the Frenemies, in the form of McDonald’s and KFC, to work together with us to feed these communities.
We partnered with Joint Aid Management (JAM), an NGO licensed to distribute our warm meals, and invited the Frenemies to join us in this feeding scheme to make a positive impact. We shared this news through our social media and PR channels using the hashtag #StreetwisePERi-PERiMcBurger.
Taking this act of charity to the next level, we customised our mobile app to give people the chance to purchase Nando’s vouchers that they could redeem as soon as restaurants were once again open.
Nando ’s then used its vouchering capability to raise money for the Solidarity Fund, a public benefit organisation with a mandate to support the national health response and contribute to humanitarian relief efforts as South Africans fight against Covid-19.
The vouchering initiative allowed Nando’s customers to contribute to the fund because for every voucher purchased, Nando’s contributed 10 times the value of any voucher bought and donated this to the Solidarity Fund.
The impact
During the Covid-19 lockdown period, Nando’s generated a total advertising value equivalent of R22,657,272 through more than 200 pieces of organic coverage.
We cooked over R1m worth of Nando ’s food, saving it from going to waste and partnering with 156 organisations around the country, including orphanages, homeless shelters, old age homes and places of safety for women and children with a total of 52,840 meals. In addition, we provided food parcels and education kits for kids in our own backyard in Lorentzville to the value of R3m.
Through the vouchering initiative Nando’s raised more than R1m for the Solidarity Fund.
The effect
It was not any SA brand’s intention to divert entirely from their plan for the year, but every smart brand did just that. It takes courage to let go of your intentions at a time when they are no longer relevant. We headed down an entirely different road from the one we planned to go down this year, and we are proud to have achieved several firsts through this agility.
We partnered with our competitors for the first time in history, pulling together as key members of the restaurant industry to support South Africans during very tough times. We built and launched a brand-new channel in the form of Kerbside Collection within a few weeks, and were first to offer this as a means for customers to collect their Nando’s orders without leaving the safety and comfort of their vehicles. We found ways of being relevant and present in the lives of our customers even when we couldn’t serve them.
We were reminded that investing in brand-building and community engagement gives you ready eyes and ears when you have something important and serious to say, and to elicit an engaging and heartfelt response across a nation.