TopTV has confirmed that it will flight the Nando’s controversial Diversity television advertisement, which the other major South African television stations and pay-TV platforms refused to screen. The decision was taken following an approach to TopTV from Nando’s media agency, The MediaShop, to provide a broadcast platform for the advert.
“We are a young yet highly competitive player in the pay-TV space in South Africa. As such, we are prepared to ‘push the envelope’ and use our platform to promote freedom of expression and to encourage debate and conversation among our diverse subscriber base,” says Jean Meyer, vice president of Airtime Sales of TopTV.
“Broadcasting the topical and satirical first series of ‘ZA News’ on Top One last year is testimony to this standpoint and, as such, we applaud Nando’s for tackling often thorny, South African issues by giving them a satirical twist. The positive message contained in the advert, with the line, ‘… real South Africans love diversity…’, is a sentiment that all South Africans should embrace.”
The advert will play out across nine commercial channels on the TopTV bouquet, namely: Top One, Top Movies, Top Movies +2, Top Movies +24, Top History, Top Explore, Top Crime, Top Gospel and ASTV. The advert will begin flighting across the channels on 21 June, and will be tagged with a promotional SMS element that offers TopTV subscribers the opportunity to win a R1000.00 Nando’s voucher per week for a period of four weeks.
