Background
To celebrate its 50th year as one of South Africa’s most loved brands, NESCAFÉ RICOFFY has launched an intelligent keyboard plugin for Android and IOS, the MZANSAY™ keyboard, to make it easier for South Africans to speak South African with their contacts.

The MZANSAY™ keyboard launched in September 2021 and encouraged South Africans to contribute their words and phrases. With 2021 marking 50 years for NESCAFÉ RICOFFY, the beloved heritage brand challenged Boomtown to concept an idea that would drive home the theme and strong message of pride, which lies at the heart of the brand. To celebrate the 50th birthday of this beloved brand, Boomtown needed to dial up the pride and the uniqueness of our people. Celebrating our South Africanness became the overarching theme for the year.

Solution
In our strategy and brainstorm sessions, we realised that our conversation was peppered with words and phrases that only a South African would understand. And so, we asked ourselves what could be more South African than our speech?

From si shayi’ tsamaya ngakhona and our innovative footwork to the way we address abantu abadala to show respect, there is an unwritten spirit of knowing who we are. Such is the power of those unique words and phrases that enrich our connections with one another. It was a perfect concept, but still not enough. We wanted to go beyond creating a campaign because it was important for NESCAFÉ RICOFFY that the celebration was relevant but also continued after 2021.

From there, we needed to engage with our developers to create the MZANSAY™ intelligent keyboard plugin that makes it easier for South Africans to speak South African with their contacts.