The Lead Creative | No more costume for Nando's, Investec's secret sauce

Wheeler describes Nando’s strategic "reset" as a "homecoming" to its core values, while both leaders advocate for clear boundaries where clients simplify complex business problems and agencies focus on creative execution.

The marketers agree that a brand needs to be clear about what it stands for and how it reinvents that and expresses that as its success.

A heavy costume

Touching on the recent Nando’s brand reset, Wheeler explains that the reset was not so much a reset as a homecoming.

“It is important not to get caught up in dressing up and doing cool things, particularly with social media.”

“But we realised that this costume, which is almost a surface-level thing, is very easy to attach yourself to. It's fun, and you get thousands of likes and shares, which are all great for your ego and all those kinds of things.

“But at the point where it doesn't start translating into long-term equity or sales in the short term, that’s when you realise that the costume is actually a little bit of an anchor around your neck and it becomes really heavy for you to wear all the time.”

She explains that you spend so much time, money, focus, resources, dressing up the costume that you don't have enough to invest in the core.

“That is when you should stop and pull back.

“Call it a midlife crisis, but it was not a rash decision because of a new CMO, or we're bored or whatever… it was needed because we had to go back to the things that made Nando's great in the first place.”

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Our secret sauce

Mokgwatsane says a brand reflects the culture of the organisation.

“This is a dynamic process because some of what the brand does will impact the culture within the organisation, just as culture is going to impact the work that the brand does on the outside.”

He explains out of what Investec was born and when there is a shift in the market, that's what they go back to.

“Our investors and our shareholders understand that that's our secret source, and they hold us accountable to that.”

He works very closely with Investec’s head of people. “We understand that we are two different sides of the same coin. We do a lot of work together.

“We obviously manifest all the internal work that we're doing, and it just makes for a stronger brand expression when you get out there.

“And our people really love seeing the work that we do out there because they've bought into it. They understand it, and it's reflective of them.”

“We stick to our knitting, and we evolve what it means to be a private bank and wealth manager.”

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#BehindtheBrand | Inside Investec’s global brand strategy

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The agency advantage

Both have worked in agencies.

Mokgwatsane says his agency experience has allowed him to understand that no agency gets anything wrong if the client hasn't completely messed it up.

“You only do work that the client assigned. This has helped me create more empathy and more patience with my teams."

He also stresses that too much has been delegated to agencies.

“Let the agency do what they are great at - too many clients think they're creative. As the client, our role is to make the complex simple. The agency’s role is to make the simple exciting.”

He says that when we conflate these, that is when the relationship gets confusing.

Wheeler, who worked exclusively in agencies for 20 years before coming to Nando’s has a similar point of view.

“It's having an appreciation for what agencies need to get the job done to the best that they can do it and how, and being a firsthand witness to how bad it can be when it's not like that.”

“Agencies do not need to know your business - that’s my job and my teams. My agency needs to understand people because we're in our Nando’s bubble."

On the flip side, she says having an understanding of the agency side means it is very difficult to bill***t her.

But she says, “Give creatives the space they need because you have lived that reality and you know how rubbish it can be when it doesn't work that way.”

Listen to this conversation further and what Mokgwatsane and Wheeler also have to say about AI.

The Lead Creative

The Lead Creative | Client agency partnerships that deliver

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About The Lead Creative

This episode forms part of the Marketers Brief Series, a quarterly podcast that explores how marketers are building their brands.

The podcast is hosted by The Lead Creative founder Mongezi Mtati and Bizcommunity's marketing and media co-editor, Danette Breitenbach.