unicornnews: Nando’s out-prank Bruno

The Australia division of restaurant chain Nandos this week won themselves a lot of domestic press coverage by taking on comedian Sacha Baron Cohen at his own game and out-pranking comedy character of the moment Bruno, the gay Austrian fashion reporter.

In a publicity stunt staged by the Sphere Agency, the firm sent an actor dressed like the Baron Cohen creation to the Syndey premiere of the ‘Bruno’ film. Arriving half an hour before the ‘real’ thing, Nandos’ fake Bruno made it to a stage set up outside the cinema and had his entourage of models reveal their promotional message for the restaurant before security latched on to what was happening.

Two male models held out posters bearing the slogan “This year’s hottest chicks are covered in Peri Peri”, while three female models covered themselves in the sauce (or something similar). The fake Bruno continued to shout out random lines in a mock Austrian accent as bouncers removed him from the scene.

With the press already in line to photograph the real Bruno, there was plenty of coverage of the imposter’s moment in the spotlight, and a video of it all has now been seen over 18,000 times on YouTube. You can check it out here.

Posted Thursday July 2 2009 by Chris Cooke