Nando’s lampoons anti-vaxxers in new campaign

Nando’s Peri-Peri—the South African chicken restaurant known for provocative marketing and irreverent social commentary—has found a target-rich environment in the anti-vaccination crowd.

A series of short videos likens consumer anxiety over receiving shots to hesitancy ordering food online, using language familiar to conspiracy theorists, science deniers and fake-news proponents.

“I ordered Nando’s directly from my phone once, but I realized no one has studied the side effects,” one performer says.

“I don’t want the Nando’s app on my phone and sure as hell don’t want my phone implanted with 5G,” says another.

The ads are part of a campaign called “Don’t Be An Anti-Apper” that Nando's hopes will help build a customer database from which it can exchange perks and discounts for consumer insights, and ultimately revive sales at the chain, which is still overcoming adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of its challenges has been a change in the composition of its customers, who now order their food to go in greater volume than they ever have across the 43-store chain. That’s changed how Nando’s needs to go after them, said Sepanta Bagherpour, chief brand officer at Nando's North America.

“Before the pandemic we were a dine-in-centric restaurant—the gross majority of our transactions happened in restaurants,” Bagherpour said. “Obviously, COVID changed all that and we had to very quickly turn on other channels, just so we would have a chance to survive. Two years on, those have become really dominant channels and it's difficult to get consumers to reverse that behavior.”

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Using the vaccine as a marketing tool—and lampooning those who continue to reject it—carries risks, including turning off some customers. But Bagherpour pointed to the support the effort has already won with employees, which gave the chain confidence. 

“The first thing I learned is that if you can get belief within your organization—the people who work us, many of whom are young people—then you have a great chance of success. That offsets a lot of the risk for us,” Bagherpour said. “The second thing we try to do is to come off with sincerity, while not taking ourselves too seriously.”

Matthew Brink, a freelance copyrighter and former senior creative director at BBDO New York, helped the chain put the campaign together. The ads will run on social media channels and some connected TV programming in Washington, D.C. and Chicago.

Nandos operates in the U.S. in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and Illinois—all of which have vaccination rates above 65%, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Bagherpour ascribes Nando’s rowdy spirit to the tenor of its founding in the 1980s in post-Apartheid South Africa, where it developed a punchy mouthiness to match the country’s outspoken social fabric. It has famously marketed on the third rail in the past, including a notorious campaign in 2011 that portrayed Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe frolicking with autocratic dictators like Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Uganda’s Idi Amin, and Mao Tse-Tung of China.

Closer to home, a campaign known as “Everyone Is Welcome” broke shortly before President Trump took office, placing thousands of posters in its restaurants in greater Washington, D.C. expressing love for immigrants, gays and Muslims and giving posters away to customers. Nando’s also waded into the 2020 election controversy with an elaborate promotion in which it offered a mystery “undemocratic meal” for $3, only to have customers discover unappetizing combinations served to them like brownies on rice and carrot cake drizzled with mayonnaise. Their reactions were captured and promoted on social media with the message that people shouldn’t allow others to choose for them.

Users of Nando’s new app can earn loyalty benefits like reduced delivery fees, free items, the ability to skip lines in restaurants, and points good for discounts on additional purchases. The restaurant is famous for its South African-style flame-grilled marinated chicken, served with a variety of hot sauces made from peri-peri peppers grown in South Africa.

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