2014 Bronze Travel, leisure and entertainment

Kitcatt Nohr

'How we drove the highest visit frequency on the UK High Street.'

Client Nando's

How did the campaign make a difference? Nando’s had built a fantastic customer base – but failed to build a customer database.

To retain its hard-won customers in the face of increasing high street competition, they needed to understand their audience better – and relaunched their loyalty card as a platform to build and maintain customer relationships.

Nando’s customers had enjoyed free chicken for a long time. Suddenly asking for data in exchange for the same reward was a tough sell – so the brand wrapped up conventional loyalty card mechanics in an unconventional manner.

The campaign built a clean, fully marketable database of 800,000 Nando’s customers in a year, increased sales and helped the company mature from a start-up, gut marketer to a savvy, datadriven organisation.

Strategy Whilst other restaurants have struggled through the economic downturn or relied on email vouchers to drive footfall, Nando’s has flourished. Much of this is attributed to its paper loyalty card – driving frequency through a simple rewards mechanic.

But this untracked, hand-stamped paper told Nando’s nothing about its customers. And worse still, left them with no customers to talk to. Nando’s customer database was a paltry 50,000 records – many without up-to-date opt-ins.

The Nando’s brand is decidedly local, and lo-fi. This is an antichain chain. The spit’n’sawdust paper card fitted this ethos. The switch to an electronic card had to be handled carefully.

The solution? A campaign that made plastic playful.

Creativity Unlike paper, you can lick plastic clean of chicken grease. Unlike paper, plastic is impervious to PERi-PERi sauce spills. Unlike paper, you will never lose all the free chicken you’ve earned. Unlike paper, it will survive a spin through the washing machine. (And unlike paper, plastic gives Nando’s data.)

Nando’s balanced the sensible with the silly. The generosity of the old card with the joy of the new card. The stupidity of paper with the joys of plastic.

And that lo-fi look? The team achieved the DIY feel by literally doing it all themselves. Vines were filmed at desks and on the street. As the campaign spread in social, user-generated content provided campaign assets sourced directly from the fans themselves. The Nando’s cult following was now making its own marketing and selling the switch on the brand’s behalf.

Results Before the campaign, Nando’s had a largely unmarketable customer database of 50,000 records. 12 months on, 11.2% of all UK diners (those who eat out at least once per month, aged 16-60) have the new Nando’s Card in their wallet. That’s in excess of 800,000 registered cardholders – with full opt-ins, individual behaviors, triggers and taste profiles.

From flat sales growth in 2013, the Nando’s Card has been a principle driver of 5% YOY sales growth in 2014, with £91m of sales tracked through the new programme. And at 4.82 visits per year, the frequency with which Nando’s Card diners return is now higher than any other high street restaurant brand.

It’s given Nando’s the customer relationships, insight and market intelligence to defend its share of mind and market, as well as a robust sample to model against the full customer base.

Team Ben Golik - Executive Creative Director, Becky Quigley - Creative, James Balmond - Creative, Dan Bort - Planner, Chloe Stanton - Project Manager - online), Dan Anderson - Project Manager - offline), Flic Theobald - Account Director, Jamie Marks - Senior Account Manager, David Manly - Head of Customer Engagement, Joanne Taylor - Assistant CRM Manager, Kaara Shepard - Designer