My interwebs friends recently sent me the links to all the Nandos #25reasons ads so I thought I’d slap them up on the site to see what you guys think.
Because Nandos is celebrating its 25th birthday, they are calling on all South Africans to give them 25 reasons why we love South Africa.
I think it’s a cool idea, especially because of the fact that Nandos used Pinterest to get people to pin their 25 reasons (I’d be interested to find out how that worked, first local brand I know of who’s tried to use Pinterest for a comp), but I’m just not too sure about the ads themselves.
Maybe I’m being hyper-critical because of the high standard of advertising Nandos usually delivers, but for me, these ads feel like they’re missing the mark.
Here’s the first one, “Nando’s Athletesâ€:
Nice stunts. But I dunno, I think car guards are a little over-used when it comes to comedic subject matter in this country.
Then there’s this one:
Huh. Forgive my whiteness but I have no idea what just happened in that ad.
Why are those brightly-clothed homeys throwing their stuff in the big fire? Why do they all get scared and drive off when the taxi seat gets thrown in the mix?
Perplexing…
This one is pretty straight-forward though:
Ah yes. Good old Nkalakatha. The closest us white saffas ever came to liking kwaito. I have never seen a black person dance to this song. The song starts and Caucasians swarm the dancefloor like white on rice.
This ad nails it when it comes to how white people react to this song though, but it just made me wish a gigantic Monty Python foot would come out of the ceiling and squash her.
Moving on, here’s the most recent one:
You think they’re arriving in Europe, but they’re actually arriving on Cape Town because everyone’s always going on about how first world Cape Town is.
I feel a punch-line eel coming on.
Am I being a gigantic asshole here? I dunno, I’ve just come to expect unbelievably awesome ads from Nandos so like I said in the beginning, maybe my expectations are too high.
Anyone care to step in and defend these ads?
I swear I won’t edit your comments to make them agree with me 
-ST
