2011 was quite a year. It saw the much-publicized fall of dictators. Nando’s (a South African Peri-Peri chicken brand) asked us to create a Festive Season campaign.

Nando’s is known for its irreverent humour and its knack for social commentary. The festive season is a time for sharing with family and friends, so our campaign took this notion to the extreme.

The TV ad features Robert Mugabe, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, PW Botha and Idi Amin lookalikes and takes you through a ridiculous memory sequence of the ‘good ol’ days’ with Mugabe frolicking around with his despotic mates.The campaign included a follow-up TV ad, 3 radio spots; an online competition and a PR stunt – each conveying the idea that the festive season is not a time to eat alone. And no matter who you are, Nando’s provides the perfect opportunity for friends to get together and share a meal.

The creative execution was born from the events of 2011 – a year with major political uprisings and the end of many autocratic leaders throughout the world. It is here that Robert Mugabe remains steadfast and stubborn in his dictatorial leadership of Zimbabwe. With despotic mates like Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin now gone, Robert Mugabe has absolutely no one with whom he can share his meals. Ironically, the commercial states, “No one should have to eat alone.” Press kits were delivered to influential bloggers by Mugabe look-alikes, while our television commercial and radio spots launched the idea to the public. Online, the campaign went live with a twitter competition, inviting the public to tweet about the 5 people with whom they’d like to share a meal. Finally, PR was used to quell the ensuing attack from Mugabe and his band of militant youths.

Just 24 hours after posting the ad, it received 91,000 YouTube hits. To date, the TV ad has received over 2m combined YouTube views and the online competition alone resulted in 3 of Nando’s busiest sales days in December 2011.

The ad found a spot on the no.1 page on YouTube and captured the attention of major online newspapers like Huffington Post, Time, The Mail & Guardian and BBC amongst others. Stephen Fry also tweeted the ad to his 3m plus followers.

But most importantly, the 2 advertised festive-season meals contributed 25% to overall sales and were the highest selling promotional meals during any festive season in the history of Nando's. Not only did we achieve our client’s objectives of creating talkability and beating the previous year’s sales, but we also gained $2,500,000 in earned media.