Nando’s doesn’t go cold turkey this festive season.
So over the past two weeks or so Mike Sharman and I have had the pleasure of working on the Nando’s CEO campaign.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably caught the hilarious TV ad or, along with over 100,000 people, have watched it on YouTube.
It’s spread faster than a peri-peri flattie chicken on a braai.
If you’re familiar with social media PR, marketing and strategy you may have questions however about why the approach seems slightly ‘cart before horse.’
If we’ve ever chatted about social media, or you’ve heard me blabbing at a conference, you’ll know that I constantly push the importance of ‘Content / Conversation / Community.’
Honestly, if I were not involved in the campaign I would have been throwing my two cents in from the sidelines, questioning why Nando’s wasn’t totally ‘owning’ the social media aspect of the campaign more, and pushing the communication and community prospects further.
Bottom line: In this instance there was no time or money to build a ‘cart’ so Mike and I chose to jump on the horse and ride it like crazy cowboys.
We happened to be in a meeting with Nando’s a week or so before the CEO campaign was due to go live. We were pitching ourselves and discussing the potential Social Media had to harness the love of the Nando’s brand on the web. We were discussing the importance of a long-term strategy and the potential of the online Nando’s community.
Midway through our meeting, the Nando’s execs sensed our excitement. They had a brief pow-wow and suddenly we were signing NDA docs and were shown the initial cuts and scripts for the CEO campaign. Our brief was thus very last minute and the objective was simply to get as many people as possible to watch, and talk about, the ad online.
We knew the content was great. (Props to the main creative agency Black River FC) It was the perfect campaign to test the social media water; and the potential to strategically pitch it to key online influencers, and personally ‘manage’ and shape the online conversation was exciting.
In terms of basic numbers, it has been mind-blowing. I have never heard of a local TV ad being viewed online (voluntarily) over 100 000 times* within a week. *(NandosADs, Memeburn and a user named koerie’s video posts combined)
The interest is there, and the case for social media is being made…. let’s see what happens next.
Filed under: Advertising, Campaigns, Local branding, social media, web 2.0 Tagged: | 5Gs, Advertising, Campaign, CEO, Kagiso, Melissa Attree, Mike Sharman, Nando's, social media, South Africa, viral
No problems with cart before horse with a brand like Nando’s, which in my opinion is a low risk social media brand. It’s one of those lovely opportunities where you can just dive in and iterate. But it would be very sad to lose the momentum of 100,000+ views. All the hard work has been done, now it’s the leverage that gets my strategic brain ticking…
Remember, social media is fickle and forgets quicker than a flattie chicken on the braai (they forget quickly if you haven’t heard).
I’m obsessed here with longevity.
a) stand out from crowd
b) leverage that into community
c) keep them interested with constant stream of value
or we get to the stage I don’t want to see – waaaay too much noise. Every brand just has to have a FaceBook/Twitter/Youtube ensemble and they all push shallow, wanky content into our already over cluttered digital earpieces. Then we all lose.
Let’s see if Nando’s wants to be a leader here…
Andy, thanks, we’re on the same page 100%