#TheMarketer: Doug Place on the recipe for Nando’s success. Plus: Cannes & the crisis of creativity in our country
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Index:
#TheMarketer: Doug Place on the recipe for Nando’s success ? How smart marketing and putting people first help create a premium brand that’s globally loved.
#BurningPaper: Cannes & the crisis of creativity in our country ? Jarred Cinman on what we need to do to reverse this decline.
#TheMarketer: Doug Place on the recipe for Nando’s success
How smart marketing and putting people first help create a premium brand that’s globally loved.
By Charles Lee Mathews (they/them) . “Let’s face it, no one ever went to high school and decided to grill chicken for a living.” Doug Place , Nando’s chief marketing officer for Africa, Middle East and South Asia is refreshingly frank in a world of branding that’s too often overly manicured by?PR.
“Nando’s doesn’t pretend that grilling chicken is a cool job. It’s hard. You stand in front of a hot grill all day, dealing with customers. It’s difficult,” he continues. This is why Nando’s decided from day one that what matters most in the business is the people who make the?chicken.
Better employee experience
All brands talk about this but Place says Nando’s pays more and works harder to create a better employee experience, which it believes creates a better guest experience and a shared value ecosystem: “We pay our restaurant staff up to 60% more than the government says is a living wage [and which is also above the industry norm]. By looking after our people, we don’t have as many issues of absenteeism, absconding, theft, or ill-discipline. As a result, our staff turnover is less than a third of what you’d have in the restaurant and retail industry. Consequently, we spend much less time and money addressing undesirable staff behaviours and, because our labour turnover is lower, we spend [fewer] resources on recruiting and training new?staff.”
If you give people a great employment experience, he says, it shows in the product: “The value starts in valuing the people. If you look after the people, the people look after the products, who then look after customers, who will then look after your bank manager and your shareholders.” He adds that the brand maximises people in a world that tends to exaggerate the focus on shareholders. “This is the real value of the Nando’s brand, and this has clear commercial consequences,” he?says.
Nando’s is a premium product and he says that pricing is fundamentally rooted in what people are prepared to pay and what it takes to run the business. “We want as many people to buy the world’s best chicken as possible. But, to sell the world’s best chicken, we need to do certain things that make it the world’s best chicken. So, for example, we only use fresh chicken. It’s never frozen and our chickens are locally supplied,” Place says. Distinctively, Nando’s also builds all its new operational outlets from scratch and decorates these with South African art and?furniture.
“Our chickens went to private school”
“We don’t want to charge any more than we have to but we also want to run a successful business,” he says. Being profitable “means we can open more restaurants. It means we can look after franchisees who put their entire family wealth (in most cases) into our brand and business. As a result, we’re a premium brand. And that’s okay. Our chickens went to private school, as they tell us routinely on Twitter,” he adds with a?chuckle.
Despite a global economy facing the slowest half-decade of GDP growth in 30 years, Nando’s has shown strong revenue. It also quickly bounced back from the beginning of the covid-19?pandemic.
Revenue aside, the company’s brand strength is attractive. 2024 saw Nando’s enter the Brand Finance 200 rankings with a brand value of US$1.5bn. This makes the multinational fast-food chain Africa’s fourth most valuable brand. “Most of Nando’s revenue is generated from international markets, particularly the UK and Australia. This global footprint is a testament to the brand’s universal appeal and ability to resonate with diverse cultures and tastes,” Brand Finance?reports.
Nando’s USP
Clever comedic marketing has set Nando’s apart from the competition from day one and embedded its brand into cultures in countries across the?world.
In the UK, former prime minister Rishi Sunak recently revealed his favourite dish is a Nando's half chicken, medium-spiced, with chips and broccoli, because: “It’s good broccoli.” Nish Kumar, British comedian and TV presenter, declared recently: “Nando’s is the only thing uniting this increasingly fragmented nation.” Back home, hot after the national and provincial elections, the Sunday World gossip column suggested the Democratic Alliance take advertising lessons from the fast-food brand. “How about some marketing lessons from Nando’s, Baas John?” the headline?read.
“Very simply, we want to be the most loved restaurant brand in the world,” Place says. When he was first offered the Nando’s CMO position in 2015, he admits that he almost didn’t take it because the marketing bar was set so high: “My first thought was: ‘All I can do is screw this thing up.’ But Nando’s sets the bar high intentionally because we want the best chicken and we want the best from our people, our creative partnerships and our agencies as?well.
“Most advertising is routinely ignored, or dull, or not interesting or irritating. This is?expensive.”
“Do you know how expensive mediocre work?is?”
Research revealed at the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity supports his assertion — some 85% of advertising fails to make a lasting?impact.
“Do you know how expensive mediocre work is? This is not a conversation I hear a lot about in ad circles but the cost of being safe and aiming low is considerable. Aiming high is expensive and risky but, honestly, I think it is less risky than aiming lower,” says?Place.
This is the reason that, together with his team and its agency since mid-2015, M&C Saatchi Abel, Nando’s has consistently created marketing that captures attention, builds the brand, and makes the spicy chicken operation perennially relevant. And it’s why Place recently won Marketing Person of the Year at the 2024 Marketing Achievement Awards, which celebrates work that ignites business, shapes culture and drives the?economy.
See also on MarkLives
Charles Lee Mathews is a contributing writer to MarkLives, as well as co-founder of The Writers, a writing?consultancy.
By ???? Jarred Cinman . This year’s Cannes Lions, held in June 2024, was a wipeout for South African agencies. Most* of the work so lauded and awarded at Loeries and other local shows vanished on the international stage. This is?unusual.
South Africa has always outperformed creatively compared with our small revenue (in hard currency terms). In the past 10 years, we’ve taken home numerous Gold Lions and many more of other metal flavours. For those of us in global networks, this has been an important way of staying top of mind and getting the attention of our global?overlords.
So, what happened?
Perhaps this was just bad luck. It happens. Awards shows share more in common with casinos than we’d like to admit, and it could be down to the vagaries of this year’s judging panels or bad case films or rotten?weather.
Maybe next year we’ll be back to our old?selves.
I suspect not. And I’ll tell you why.
Advertising has moved on
This industry has changed. What worked in the past no longer works (or, at least, isn’t working the way it used to). This is largely due to the impact technology has had on both how we make work and how consumers consume?it.
This isn’t something that’s happened overnight. We are 25 years into the digital revolution, and this is now (very) old news. Yet it’s remarkable how slowly the advertising industry in general has transformed over that period. There’s an enormous chasm between how media consumption has changed and how the marketing industry has?evolved.
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This foot-dragging on the part of our industry has meant that old media types have continued to enjoy more prominence than they deserve for much longer than they should have. This is a product of many things but among them is the nostalgia of senior creative leaders for these?media.
A great example of this is radio. This communication channel has been fundamentally disrupted by digital simply because people have stopped tuning in. Instead, they spend their time on YouTube or TikTok or listening to podcasts. We all know this and yet we have continued to elevate radio advertising as an important category in our work and at awards?shows.
South Africa has always had an edge in radio categories at Cannes. You could interpret that as we’re great at making radio ads and have a country that still listens to a lot of radio. Or you could conclude that the consumer has moved on and so have many clients and agencies and, therefore, this is a comparatively easy category to win?in.
I don’t want to litigate the whole topic of whether audio advertising has a future. The fact remains that being the best in the world at a dying and increasingly irrelevant medium isn’t something to be proud?of.
Ditto for print. Ditto for broadcast television. Ditto for many other legacy media?types.
Getting left behind
While it’s taken a really long time, this year may well be the watershed moment where newer, largely digital, media have overtaken these old media types. As both the bellwether and exemplar of cutting-edge advertising, Cannes is rewarding that kind of?work.
So, are we as a country and industry keeping pace? On the evidence of at least this one show, the answer is?no.
It’s not that we don’t have any great ideas or aren’t making super amazing stuff. Sitting through last year’s Loeries really demonstrated just how much good work is happening in the SA ad industry. Smart, beautiful and?effective.
Too much of this work is rooted in an historical media landscape and an outdated understanding of consumers, though. Too much of it’s informed by what we as agencies, and our client marketers, would prefer to make, rather than what consumers?want.
It’s not that traditional media no longer works or that there isn’t a place for big TV commercials or amazing outdoor or, even, clever print or radio. If these channels stopped delivering results entirely, clients would abandon them.?Obviously.
By its nature, a show like Cannes is forward-looking. It isn’t there simply to acknowledge work that works — it’s there to highlight truly innovative and groundbreaking pieces. So, it’s not enough to tread well-worn paths; we have to challenge the establishment and push the boundaries. And we’re simply not doing that?enough.
“Brain drain”
This is a point I’ve raised before but we’ve lost a lot of senior, experienced talent to the global market in the past 10 years. This “brain drain” has disproportionately impacted the most senior creative leadership. Just within my agency network, South Africans are now in key leadership roles in the US, Canada and the UK. The same is true for many other?networks.
This in itself wouldn’t be a problem if we’d effectively upskilled a new generation and had emerging creative luminaries to take their place. We haven’t. There are mountains of raw talent out there but, by and large, these people are not yet at the level to compete?internationally.
Our egos might not want to accept this point, and I imagine many people being insulted by me saying it, but the results speak for themselves: We’re good but we’re not great. We might grow into our new shoes but we might also just lower our standards. And if we do that, we risk vanishing into insignificance as a creative?community.
Local advertising shows, similarly, can drive contradictory outcomes. If we judge work with global metrics in mind, we can use them to push us forward. Yet, if we grade on a curve, we can also lie to the mirror. Nothing should win a Loeries Grand Prix and then go on to not even win a Bronze at Cannes (on the reasonable expectation that winning a Grand Prix locally would indicate entry into global award shows, and there were pieces that won multiple Grands Prix at Loeries last year). This suggests categories, judging criteria and judging standards that are dangerously out of step. Creating an awards echo chamber might feel good on the night but it’s not helping us stay?competitive.
Does Cannes matter?
I know there are many marketers and agency leaders who like to say that winning awards doesn’t sell products. Even if there were a link, surely it matters more that we win against local competition than beating someone in London or New York or S?o?Paulo?
Unfortunately, the internet doesn’t have borders. An iPhone is an iPhone. TikTok is TikTok. Consumer behaviour change is a global phenomenon and, while there are many socioeconomic nuances in our country, we’re all changing in the same way most other people on earth are. This is particularly true in the key target markets for most of our?clients.
It’s not all about digital
It’s also worth saying that not all the changes are about people moving from analogue to digital channels. There are exciting new categories, such as creative commerce, B2B and many others which are new tools in the marketing toolbox. In many ways, they’re still products of digital transformation and audience fragmentation but they may show up on non-digital channels (for example, in a physical store).
I believe we need to raise our standards and move our own goalposts. We need to accept where we’ve failed to keep up and insist that our creative leaders and creative teams prioritise innovation alongside creativity. We must challenge our clients to make brave decisions and rely on data that proves where consumer attention and behaviour has shifted. Plus we need to invest in our new leaders to develop them into the next generation of iconic SA?creatives.
I could be wrong and this could just be a bad year. If I’m not, we need to act swiftly to reverse a decline that risks everything we’ve inherited from generations of celebrated South Africans. We owe it to them, to our amazing brands and all our people to do?better.
*Apart from Silver for The Riky Rick Foundation’s Stronger by TBWA\ Hunt Lascaris, a collaboration my agency did with our global offices for Coca-Cola, Thanks for Coke-Creating, and some collaborative wins by Clockwork for The Everyday Tactician, we came home?empty-handed.
Jarred Cinman is CEO of VML South Africa, leading the Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban offices. #BurningPaper focuses on exploring industry?issues.
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