Creating a movement to change things that matter (with pics and video)

Three pillars have been unveiled at Nando’s HQ containing 40 000 names of people who sent in recommendations to the brand’s #rightmyname campaign.

The unveiling was preceded by a scrumptious lunch, containing all of Nando’s favourites, along with socialising and networking with other attendees.

The background

The campaign was brainstormed by Nando’s creative agency M&C Saatchi Abel, after an employee mentioned that whenever they typed their name into Microsoft Word, it was marked as an incorrect underlined by the dreaded red squiggle. The campaign morphed from there into a South African movement, which has since gone global as well. Nando’s started by approaching its approximately 14 000 employees countrywide, and asking them to submit their names to a corporate library. This was then expanded to include the broader public, who could submit their names at www.rightmyname.com.

Spread like wild fire

“Clearly this is a passion point for people, more than we realised,” comments Doug Place, chief marketing officer for Africa, the Middle East, and India at Nando’s. The campaign has racked up 38 million digital impressions, over 1.5 million interactions, and 70 000 names submitted to date.

Going global

But this campaign is not just a South African movement. It has since spread internationally with responses from as far afield as Dubai, England, Australia and the US. Submissions are still coming in. “It’s not a finished article by any means … We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t get people’s names right on a computer, but we can now,” adds Place.

The Sunday Times controversy

Commenting on the backlash Nando’s and the Sunday Times received around the advertising campaign allegedly infringing on the editorial in the publication, Place says it was not the intention of the company to disrupt the editorial, only to spread the message.