Peri-Peri chicken restaurant Nando’s says TikTok has added an extra spice to its content marketing and advertising campaigns in 2023.
Nando’s decided to start investing heavily in Gen Z’s favourite app this year after previously “treading gently” with short-form videos.
Eagle-eyed TV viewers in the UK might have spotted Nando’s “This Must Be the Place” adverts in recent months.
But the same campaign has also been doing the rounds on TikTok, where it has easily surpassed the company’s ad recall benchmark.
Nando’s opted for a straightforward transition from TV to social media.
Rather than creating exclusive edits and spin-off videos, it chose to use exactly the same content on TikTok.
Creator Jonathan Entwistle, who recently directed comedy-drama The End of the F***ing World, believed it was engaging enough to work without any tweaks.
Nando’s head of brand, Hannah Smith, admits that was a risk.
She says there was hesitancy about being too “addy” in a social media environment renowned for bite-sized clips created for entertainment.
But the video resonated with a young target audience.
In the two weeks after its launch, awareness of the ad campaign jumped 20% for the 18 to 24-year-old demographic.
Nando’s is now planning to experiment more with TikTok.
Smith noted: “We’ve never really invested huge amounts into TikTok, but we’ve seen an excellent return on investment from playing in that channel.”
Nando’s is still finding its feet in advertising after wrestling with an internal dilemma about what the brand represents.
Smith says it’s hard to “articulate” what makes Nando’s great for so many people.
This is because food lovers each have their own “experience” and “interpretation” of what Nando’s is.
After an excellent branded campaign to start Q1 of the new financial year, Nando’s is on the right track in linking its iconic brand reputation with its content output.
