My humblest apologies to Nando’s, my all time favouritest peri-peri chicken restaurant in the whole wide world. I should have known better than to think they would just bend over and take it up the peri-peri bottle neck without a fight.
In one of their most recent adverts, Nando’s touched the touchy Julius Malema who is the head of the ANC Youth League. The league and not Julius, Julius said, took offence and threatened with ‘militant action‘ should Nando’s not withdraw the ad within 24-hours.
Nando’s agreed to meet the ANC YL for discussions in what I certainly thought was a bending-over exercise. Turns out it was just another brilliant step in yet another controversial Nando’s marketing campaign.
To be fair, Nando’s addressed all the issues that the ANC YL complained about, namely disassociating excellent peri-peri chicken with Julius Malema. I have to say though, there are many things much more embarresing that you could be associated with than the best peri-peri chicken on the planet *cough*cough*20%woodwork*cough*cough*.
Complying, in the Nando’s way, they re-released the ad obscuring the face of the Julius-like puppet with a pixelated circle and changing its voice with a chipmunk-like disguise. In doing so, they ‘disassociated the likeness of Julius’ and the ANC YL from Nando’s, which was their main request.
And that’s bending over Nando’s style.
Give it up for Nando’s extra hot peri-peri chicken! And Nando’s, sorry again, hey.