Flame-grilled South Africa - 25 Sep 2012

If you're wondering why you never received your newsletter yesterday, it's because it was Heritage Day in South Africa. In 2005, the public holiday was nicknamed National Braai Day. Nando's, the flame-grilling restaurant group, known for their integrated online and offline advertising, a week before Heritage Day, launched their latest campaign, 25 Reasons.

This campaign, in celebration of the franchise's 25th birthday, asks the people of South Africa to give 25 reasons why they love their country. I find this campaign entertaining and very well planned campaign because Heritage Day is aimed at celebrating South Africa's cultural heritage and its diversity of beliefs and traditions.

The brand created a Pinterest board detailing it's very own reasons why it loves South Africa. If you've seen any of Nando's previous advertising campaigns, you will know that it shouldn't be taken for face value. In addition to getting public to create their own boards with a chance of winning prizes, they also released two videos on YouTube.

The advertising agency behind the Nando's ads is Black River FC, who over the weekend, scooped several awards at the Loeries. Congratulations to all the other winners at this years awards.

Talking of advertising firms, Y&R Brands has cut ties with global partner, Y&R Inc - after 22 years.

In other news across the continent: the subject of the 'spy machine' continues, with the High Court of Malawi saying the machine has the potential to be abused; the Nation Publications Limited in Malawi launched a mobile news service, which will see subscribers receive news headlines sent to their handsets; 2go, a social network mobile app proves to be successful in Africa, reportedly with 9 million active users already; and sticking to social media, Ugandan brands are urged to exploit the power of Google+, according to Ham Namakajjo, country manager of Google Uganda.

Cheers to a good week!

Evan-Lee Courie @evan1985