When Vancouver’s Smak, an irreverent marketing agency if ever there was one, heard about a big upcoming protest by pro-drug-reform activists, they spied an opportunity for a client. Why not work the crowd at a ‘4:20’ puff-in outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, they asked brand strategists at the Nando’s Canada chain of flame-grilled chicken?
The goofy tie-in was green-lighted, so Nando’s street teams showed up brandishing pseudo-protest signs reading: ‘Chicken for ALL Canadians.’ As they made their way through about 7,000 activists on the smoke-filled gallery grounds, team members passed out free chicken sandwiches to those hard hit by the munchies, as well as vouchers for quarter-chicken meals and, yes, branded matchbooks.
