The past few days have seen another great triumph for digital marketing and video marketing in particular – with both hilarious and heart warming results.
Earlier in April, Nando’s – a South African fast-food chain known for their facetious, tongue-in-cheek adverts – spoofed a television advert of one of South Africa’s most well-known insurance companies, Santam and inserted their own marketing message.
The original Santam ad features British actor Ben Kingsley discussing the paperwork involved with insurance and the importance of constant vigilance. Nando’s immediately saw the opportunity to spoof the solemn tone of the advert and did so with their usual flippant flair.
Usually, brands who end up sparring because of copyright infringements take their cases and their lawyers to court or die ASA, but Santam’s marketers saw an opportunity to level the playing field without resorting to conflict.
Instead they responded to Nando’s with a spoof video of their own. The video features a Ben Kingsley lookalike who promptly issues a challenge to the fast food restaurant before cheekily asking if they’re “chicken”. Pretty apt considering that the fast food joint in question specialises in Portuguese style poultry. The challenge: to deliver an enormous food delivery to the children of the Johannesburg Children’s Home.
See the video here:
Both videos instantly went viral, setting news sites and social networks abuzz. Initially, it was unclear whether Nando’s would accept Santam’s challenge, but on Wednesday Nando’s confirmed that they would not only accept the challenge but that they would deliver an additional meal per month to the children’s home for the twelve months.
The videos are undoubtedly a marketing hit with both companies emerging as the winners in a battle that could so easily have been yet another exasperating tiff between big brands. On Thursday it was reported to the nation’s delight that Nando’s had indeed delivered the meals to the needy children.
Santam even took their moment in the spotlight a step further by initiating a huge site takeover on South Africa’s biggest online publisher News24 on Thursday. The popularity of these off-the-cuff campaigns has proven the undeniable popularity and power of video as well as digital marketing in our world today.
