Nando's ad: Banned from TV... Goes to print

Earlier this month, SABC, DSTV, M-Net and e.tv refused to flight the advertisement saying it had xenophobic connotations.

Last week, the Cape Times was told by SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago said the advertisement could incite attacks on foreigners.

"Nando's may say that it is trying to promote diversity but what we are concerned about is that the public might interpret it differently," he said at the time.

Storyboard

The full-page print advertisement on Sunday shows a storyboard version of the television one with various screenshots.

Photographs of key moments in the advertisement are presented in blocks with written descriptions underneath.

The first block shows an empty veld with a fence and sign that says 'arrivals' on it.

"We hear the voice of a xenophobe say, "you know what's wrong with South Africa? All you foreigners," reads the description under the block.

The second block shows a man with a suitcase climbing through a hole in the fence.

"The voice, says, "You must all go back to where you came from." reads the description.

The blocks go on to show various cultural and racial groups in South Africa disappearing into clouds of smoke.

Cameroonians, Congolese, Pakistanis, Ghanaians, Kenyans and Somalis shown queuing at a marquee with a sign 'Immigrations' all go up in smoke.

A Nigerian at a Hillbrow street corner talking to a European couple in a car are all told to go home, after which they disappear.

I'm not going anywhere'

"A plume of white smoke escapes from the Plaza" the description reads, after Indians are told to hotfoot it out.

Three Chinese men offloading a truck and an Afrikaans farmer driving a bakkie are the next to vanish. The next block shows the passengers at the back of the bakkie.

They too disappear as the voice tells the Swazis to go back to Swaziland, the Sothos to return to Lesotho and "the Tswanas, Vendas, Zulus, everybody," to go back from where they came.

The final blocks show a Khoisan man directly facing the camera.

The description quotes him as saying: "I'm not going anywhere. You *$%!@* [swear word blocked out in advert] found us here."

The punchline is "Real South Africans Love Diversity".

The print advertisement also lists a YouTube address, where the television advertisement can be viewed.

By Sunday late morning, the video advertisement had been viewed 373 229 times.

A description underneath is reads, "Either way you look at it, we were all once foreigners in SA, except for the Khoisan of course."

In December last year, Nando's stopped flighting its "last dictator standing" TV commercial after alleged threats were made against Nando's Zimbabwe's employees and customers.

The company said in a statement that a militant youth group loyal to Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe had called for a boycott of Nando's because of the ad.

The commercial showed Mugabe dining alone at Christmas at an empty table set for departed dictators. As he sits alone he reminisces about happy memories with them such as him and Muammar Gaddafi engaging in a water pistol fight, making sand angels with Iraq's Saddam Hussein and singing karaoke with Chairman Mao.

Source: Sapa via I-Net Bridge