This is the final instalment of the Rational Alternative, a column I have been writing for the Financial Mail over the past few months. I will also be stopping my weekly writing for Business Day. There are a few reasons, but mainly because Biznews.com’s growth has been beyond expectations and it requires more of my attention. Some tough decisions had to be taken and this is one of them. In future I will be writing primarily (and often) for Biznews.com. It’s been a privilege writing for two world class editors in Peter Bruce and Tim Cohen. Their publications deserve to flourish. The piece below, which is in the latest edition of the FM, is perhaps the most appropriate way to end the relationship – with a touch of humour. – AH
By Alec Hogg*
Nandos is now a global brand. But back in the mid-1980s it was a single outlet at the top of Rosettenville Road in Johannesburg’s unfashionable Deep South.
I spent many Sunday afternoons queuing there to feed a family addiction for now famous Nandos chicken and chips. So watched with considerable interest as Robbie Brozin franchised the brand. And lamented when the investment community ignored its attractions, allowing the 2003 delisting business at a valuation of just R450m.
The iconic Nandos advertising played a major role is the development of the business. Most of the campaigns reflected Brozin’s wacky sense of humour. My favourite was one which ran, briefly, after Nandos was launched in the UK.
Brozin told me the idea was to incentivise anyone prepared to come into the store with a Nandos-branded paper bag over their head. It was gaining traction until a would-be customer sued the company. The guy claimed to have been assaulted by an umbrella-wielding old lady. His misfortune was to have passed an ATM en route to his free meal.
The Nandos success story owes much to the contribution of its advertising agency Hunt Lascaris. In his Lessons from the Boot of a Car, Reg Lascaris says before Brozin walked through the door, “we were looking for a knowing little smile, not laugh-out-loud, hard-core comedy. That changed. ”
Lascaris says his job in the early days was to get the public to see “the quirky, spicy quality that set Nandos apart.” It took shape through a TV ad of a chicken doing dog impersonations to avoid ending up on the Nandos menu. Then came the little old blind lady taken by her guide dog into a store to buy Nandos – and then led straight into a lamppost.
The funny-bone formula has been applied to good effect by others like Vodacom’s Yebo Gogo and another Lascaris client, City Lodge. But it’s one thing using jokes to sell fast moving consumer goods. Another matter entirely in financial services.
So I was intrigued at the invitation to Joe Parker’s at Montecasino for the filming of Brightrock’s new advertising campaign.
Parker’s is one of only two Comedy Clubs in Africa. Brightrock is a disruptive life assurance business whose four person management team includes the former Discovery duo Sean Hanlon and his wife, marketing expert Suzanne Stevens.
It was a breath of fresh air laughing through an evening where comedians never needed to reach into an over-used cussing or racist bag.
I’ve no idea how the material will be adapted into a marketing strategy. But on a line through the quality of Conrad Koch (Chester Missing), Kagiso Lediga, Stuart Taylor and Daniel Friedman, the innovative Stevens, and Brightrock, looks to be onto a winner.
One of the greatest proponents of using humour to get serious messages across is the world’s most successful investor, Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett (83).
Every year on the first Saturday in May, Buffett and his 89 year old vice chairman Charlie Munger draw 30 000 shareholders and fans to remote Omaha for the best attended AGM on earth.
The two octogenarians spend five and a half hours answering shareholders’ questions about economics, investment and life. Pretty serious subjects. What makes it palatable, fascinating even, is their wisecracking. Both Buffett and his famously curmudgeon partner are masters of the one-liner. Their sense of humour makes entertainment out of what would otherwise be a lecture, a sermon even.
Another exponent of the craft is Boston Philharmonic conductor Benjamin Zander. A brilliant musician, Zander combines that skill with inspirational stories to deliver one of the most memorable keynotes you’re likely to ever hear.
Again, his secret weapon is humour. Like telling us of a Holocaust surviving father who never complained. How, even in the most bitter weather he’d say any discomfort was not caused by the icy cold, but simply “inappropriate clothing”.
Zander’s one liner that will always stay with me is his Rule Number Six: “Don’t take yourself so goddam seriously.” That advice, like laughter, can be a wonderful antidote.
* Alec Hogg is a writer and broadcaster who runs Biznews.com. This article first appeared in the Financial Mail.
