A decade after it first broke the internet, Nando’s classic chaos-at-the-intersection advert has returned to the spotlight, and the timing couldn’t be more on the nose.
Johannesburg, South Africa (23 November 2025) – Some things simply age well… wine, friendships, and apparently, Nando’s adverts. An old favourite has burst back onto our timelines, and it’s got South Africans laughing, sharing and side-eyeing the government in equal measure. The legendary “blue-light brigade” chaos-at-an-intersection skit resurfaced and is being shared across every social platform imaginable.
And it still slaps.
Originally released in 2014, the ad offers a brilliantly comic look at what might happen if four different VIP convoys tried to halt each other at the same intersection. Sirens, ego, chaos and Nando’s humour landing every punchline. It came with the hashtag #NoBlueLights, a tongue-in-cheek campaign that encouraged South Africans to have their say through Facebook likes, Mxit polls (yes, we’re all suddenly feeling very nostalgic), and the good old days of Twitter, when Twitter was still, well… Twitter.
The response was enormous.
It became one of the platform’s most-watched videos, landing in the top three on YouTube at the time, with the hashtag trending for weeks.
Now, nearly a decade later, the ad is back on everyone’s timelines. And the reason is surprisingly political.
South Africa is currently participating in the G20 summit. A gathering of the world’s major economies, where global leaders meet to discuss trade, development, climate, security and pretty much everything shaping the planet right now. It’s a big deal. A massive one, actually. Being part of those conversations is important for the country’s reputation, foreign investment and our place in the global economy.
And the government has… how do we say… spruced things up.
Roads resurfaced. Suburbs cleaned. Streetlights working. Pavements repaired. Entire routes transformed almost overnight. Well, over the last couple of weeks, “overnight”.
As one social user joked, “G20 must happen every month if this is the standard!”
“We’re not saying do it for the guests… do it for us. We live here!” Another added.
The sudden glow-up of Joburg has sparked a very real conversation: If this level of efficiency is possible, why isn’t it the norm? If government can clean up roads for dignitaries… can they keep doing it afterwards? Can more suburbs receive the same attention? Is this a turning point, or a performance? How do we hold leadership accountable so that this isn’t a once-off?
South Africa deserves consistent care, not event-based upgrades. And seeing how quickly things improved proves something powerful: it’s possible.
The ad may be old. But the energy it’s creating feels wonderfully new.
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