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:
@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).
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. https://t.co/Mw2HoHzKGr
— NandosSA (@NandosSA) September 9, 2019
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!
