N'ku'cooked or UN'Nku'cooked? What went wrong with the Pick n Pay ad?

12 Sep 2019

Social media was aflame and grilled this week about an ad campaign from Pick n Pay promoting their new chicken range.

It's not just Chicken, it's iNkukhu �� Our all-new summer range is perfect for the braai. Get your summer sorted here > https://t.co/RmeRsY7eIF #PnpSummerSorted pic.twitter.com/uOR8Ndas2Y
— Pick n Pay (@PicknPay) September 3, 2019

Nando's has hilarious response to Pick n Pay's new 'iNkukhu' advert

11 Sep 2019

As an internet search will inform, the roasting the local retailer is receiving is due to two facts - one that Pick n Pay had the temerity to use the generic isiXhosa and isiZulu word for chicken #iNkukhu in the ad, the other that the smarty pants’ chicken giant, Nando’s responded with customary lightning-fast wit to which Pick n Pay was sadly unable to respond with any except:

Dear Internet, we thought "It’s not just chicken it’s CHICKEN!" was a fun way to bring out the deliciousness of our new chicken. We didn't mean to make anyone angry. We hope you will try some of our new chicken and see why we think it’s worth getting flame-grilled for �� https://t.co/h9xcCuIaUQ
— Pick n Pay (@PicknPay) September 9, 2019

What is an “all-new summer range” of chicken anyway?

@PicknPay It's not just Chicken, it's iNkukhu �� Our all-new summer range is perfect for the braai. Get your summer sorted here > http://bit.ly/2Uo8u5Q #PnpSummerSorted

What’s really baffling is what an “all-new summer range” of chicken even is! Also the word range here - a tantalising nugget which everyone seems to have missed. Is it something to do with free ‘range’? Is there a new ‘range’ of flavours? Colour-coded packaging range? Have Pick n Pay introduced an iNkukhu-label fashion range? (By the way, love this idea, Pick n Pay - call me).

"It’s not just chicken, it’s CHICKEN!"

Another mistake is that the communications are just too generic. Are they promoting N'ku'cooked chicken or Un'Nku'cooked chicken, ready for the bring and braai? The fact that anybody believed the line "It’s not just chicken, it’s CHICKEN!" was “a fun way to bring out the deliciousness of our new chicken”, sums up the whole half-baked fiasco.

“Yuh, kwaze kwa'awks”

Yuh, kwaze kwa'awks. https://t.co/Mw2HoHzKGr
— NandosSA (@NandosSA) September 9, 2019

With all the recent sad and bad news, South Africans have been experiencing as of late, we’re in need of laughs and you can rely on Nando’s for that. Sadly, their single tweet ‘Yuh, kwaze kwa'awks” and its 1K comments, 4,4k retweets and 9k likes to date, have been about the only thing hungry Saffers have thus far been able to feast upon.

On a practical note, it’s a chilly September, an unlikely time to expect brand promises of an “all-new summer range” and hashtag #PnpSummerSorted to entice a dash for the poultry aisles.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the term “iNkukhu”, it could even have been kinda cute. When so many aspects of a marketing strategy are ill-conceived it leaves you wide open to being torn apart which is what has happened. If the ads were strategically sounder, better thought through, better executed and had delivered on even one promise of “new” chicken, they might even have nailed it!