Nando’s, the flamed-grilled chicken restaurant, is famous in South Africa for tackling “hot” social topics. The brand is honest, direct, and when appropriate irreverent. They’re happy to point fingers but only when we’re all pointing them at each other!

SA’s history of racial segregation and the erosion of dignity is at the centre of #rightmyname. It’s exactly the kind of topic consumers trust Nando’s to handle with the right balance of sincerity and humour.

Every day in South Africa, spellcheck tells people that their unique African names are a mistake, underling them in red. Nando’s want to right this wrong.

Situation

Every day in South Africa, spellcheck tells people that their unique African names are a mistake, underlining them in red. How is it that our technology discriminates against people who don’t have traditional English names?

Brief:

Nando’s, decided to right this wrong with #rightmyname. A multi-platform campaign that rallied the people of SA, and inspired them to add their names to a list of African names.

On Human Rights day 2018, the online list was made available for download. Spellcheck dictionaries across the country were made inclusive, ensuring the red line disappeared for good.

Objectives:

1. To Launch a multi-platform campaign that would rally South Africans and inspire them to add their name to a list of African names. And in so doing remove the red line for good.

2. Entrench the ‘voice of the people’ positioning by activating the ‘Fire it Up’ brand idea in a resonant way.

#rightmyame started with Nando’s taking a look at themselves, at their name and their famous spice “PERi-PERi” two things that even after 30 years still had spellcheck’s red line. That was never going to fly with Nando’s, it was time to say “vo*tsek!” to spellcheck.

The talk turned immediately to all the other non-traditional English names in Nando’s, the Naledi’s, Nival’s, Thabiso’s and Shireen’s, spellcheck’s red line was calling their names a mistake too.

It was absurd that 24 years into democracy non-traditional English names were still being discriminated against. A stark reminder of the days when so many black South Africans we forced to adopt English names because their own weren’t recognised.

It became clear that spellcheck and its discriminatory red line had no place in a country that’s built on the power of diversity. And that’s why Nando’s decided to do something about it.

Nando’s targets a middle to affluent audience in South Africa, who want their voices to be heard, especially when it comes to topical issues.

The campaign targeted social media influencers who aren’t afraid to share their voice on key issues as well as fans of the brand to spread the message.

Because of the newsworthy nature of the idea Nando’s ran a full-page ad in the country’s leading newspaper, the Sunday Times, to drive further engagement. Because of the campaigns topical nature, the same newspaper took the idea further and in a media first used their editorial content to drive home the message of #rightmyname by underlining all the African names in the first two pages of the newspaper.

A mix of a print news title and targeted social media activity led to +53 million impressions and +70,000 names being submitted over the brief 2-month campaign period.

The campaign kicked off internally with every employee encouraged to add their name to the #rightmyname dictionary and share the message with their friends and family via social media.

After Nando’s employees had added their names to the list, it was the public’s turn. A video was shared on social media, created to highlight the issue.

An innovative social media campaign targeted celebrities that received a red line under their name. They each received a custom t-shirt with their name underlined in red thread. The call-to-action was simple, share a video of yourself removing the red line from under your name and help us remove the red line today.

Before Human Rights Day, the Sunday Times (SA’s largest newspaper) underlined every non-traditional English name, on front and inside covers, in red. It was a South African media first and whipped up quite a debate on social media.

+70 000 unique names registered

+53 Million impressions

Most importantly, millions of people were no-longer made to feel like a mistake.

It all started with a Question. Why does spellcheck underline non-English names like Tshedimoso, Ntobeko and Nselelo and not names like John, Mary and Anne?

It was absurd that 24 years into democracy non-traditional English names were still being discriminated against. A stark reminder of the days when so many black South Africans we forced to adopt English names because their own weren’t recognised.

It became clear that spellcheck and its discriminatory red line had no place in a country that’s built on the power of diversity.