VMLY&R South Africa, a South African advertising and brand agency, walked away from the 2019 Apex Awards with a bronze win in the launch category, for Nando’s eCommerce platform.
VMLY&R’s eCommerce platform for Nando’s was recognised for meeting and exceeding the client’s KPI of a 3 per cent conversion rate with an actual conversion of 4.4 per cent. Additional KPIs included R18 million of sales through the platform within 15 months that was exceeded by R9 million. The agency’s self-imposed target of 22 718 downloads from launch actually reached 56 000 and eCommerce orders have been 20 per cent higher in value than those placed through the call centre.
“When considering cannibalisation at a rate of 20 per cent, the project has already paid for itself one-and-a-half times,” says Head of Strategy, Ismail Jooma. “We’re always thankful for clients like Nando’s who trust us with their valuable brands and allow us to do what we do best and we’re always thrilled to demonstrate real results.”
Nando’s South Africa launched its eCommerce platform during the second half of 2018 in order to expand the brand’s market share.
“We had to answer the questions of how could Nando’s make it even easier for South Africans to get their hands on their favourite PERi-PERi chicken while at the same time offering the same experience as visiting a Nando’s restaurant,” comments Jooma.
The platform offers customisation and intelligent search functionality that recognises natural language, voice recognition and the cheeky Nando’s tone. The result is:
- Orders can be placed via voice or text.
- Search is easy with the system recognising menu options by name, localised synonyms and/or nicknames.
- Autoconfiguration capabilities so a customer can ask for a “Hot chicken burger meal with fries and coke”, and it configures the order accordingly to be added to the basket with one click, ready for checkout.
- An ability to remember favourite orders for one-touch delivery based on user behaviour.
- Customers can plan their day by ordering for delivery ASAP or a specific time in the future on that same day.
- Orders can be collected in-store or delivered to a location of choice.
- Delivery can be tracked with the same Nando’s brand of humour.
The final result is an award-winning e-commerce platform unique to Nando’s that has produced 160 000 orders in less than a year.
“The Nando’s win is a huge step in recognising the contribution of technology in aid of creativity and business effectiveness. This is a proof point for our philosophy of orchestrating Connected Brands,” concludes Jooma.
Edited by Jenna Cook
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