ARCHIVEKORU - Koru | Clapboard Ad Archive
The KORU campaign, launched in 2021 by the agency Milenium5, presents an innovative leap in health...
Ryobi Backs Kirsten Landman on the Road to Dakar
Ryobi's 2019 South Africa campaign, 'People and power tools that won't quit', follows Kirsten Landman — the first African female competitor to qualify for the Dakar Rally's motorbike classification — across a monthly Facebook documentary series that culminates in a television commercial released in November 2019, positioning the power-tool brand as a partner to people defined by resilience rather than simply a maker of hardware.
The campaign was created by Johannesburg agency Retroactive and produced by 10th Street. Its central subject is Landman's preparation for the Dakar Rally, scheduled to run from 5 to 17 January 2020 in Saudi Arabia — a race widely regarded as the most demanding off-road endurance event in the world. Ryobi's strategic choice to document that preparation monthly on Facebook, rather than confine the story to a single broadcast spot, gave the brand a sustained presence across the South African market over many months leading into the event.
Landman's backstory anchors the campaign's emotional core. She survived a life-threatening motorcycle accident that ruptured her spleen and forced her to relearn how to walk, before returning to competitive motorsport and becoming the first African woman to earn a Dakar Rally motorbike classification start. In South Africa, where the rally has a devoted following among off-road motorcycling communities, that trajectory carried immediate cultural resonance. Ryobi aligned its product promise — durability, reliability, refusal to quit — directly to Landman's personal narrative, making the athlete the living embodiment of the brand's proposition rather than simply a celebrity endorser. The campaign's Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100 reflects strong strategic coherence and cultural specificity within the South African electronics and power-tool category.
Ryobi operates in a competitive South African power-tool market where brand differentiation on product specification alone is increasingly difficult to sustain. In the consumer and professional power-tool segment across South Africa, rivals including Stanley Black and Decker and Bosch maintain significant retail presence, competing on both price and professional credibility. Retroactive's strategic decision to centre the campaign on a human story rather than a product showcase reflects an understanding that emotional brand equity — particularly in the Electronics, Technology, House, and Garden category — is built through sustained narrative, not individual product claims.
The insight driving the campaign is precise. Ryobi's core South African customer — the serious DIY homeowner, the small contractor, the person who uses tools hard and expects them to perform — shares a psychological profile with an endurance athlete. Both operate in conditions where equipment failure carries real consequences. By selecting Kirsten Landman, whose Road to Dakar journey embodied literal life-or-death stakes, Retroactive gave Ryobi a proof-of-resilience story that no product demonstration reel could replicate. The monthly Facebook documentary format extended that proof across the South African market for an entire competitive season rather than delivering a single burst of awareness.
According to adsoftheworld.com, the campaign was documented and recognised within the global advertising community as a notable example of athlete-brand alignment in the South African market. The global power-tool industry, according to alliedmarketresearch.com, was valued at approximately US$32.664 billion in 2019 and was forecast to reach US$48.677 billion by 2027 at a compound annual growth rate of 4.8 percent — a context that underscores why regional brands within growing markets like South Africa are investing in brand-building campaigns that sustain consumer loyalty across a long competitive horizon rather than driving purely transactional retail messaging.
Director Samantha Nell led the production of the campaign film, titled 'Kirsten Landman's Road to Dakar TVC', for production company 10th Street. Executive producer Darren Kerr oversaw production, with Mike Sharman serving as executive creative director and Ben Karpinski as creative director at Retroactive. Music and sound design was handled by Audio Militia, and video editing was credited to Mia Groenewald, as reported on her professional profile via linkedin.com.
The creative approach treats Landman not as a brand ambassador performing to camera but as a documentary subject whose unscripted reality generates the campaign's persuasive power. Nell's direction prioritises authenticity — the dust, the physical effort, the medical history, the vulnerability of an athlete who has already come close to losing everything and chosen to return to the same risk. This is not aspirational lifestyle advertising. It is observational filmmaking applied to a brand context, and the distinction matters in the South African market, where audiences are alert to the distance between polished brand promise and lived experience.
The monthly Facebook series format reinforced that authenticity. Rather than a single polished TVC appearing at the moment of the Dakar Rally, the campaign built an audience in South Africa over consecutive months, allowing viewers to follow Landman's preparation in real time. The November 2019 television commercial then served as a culminating chapter rather than a cold introduction. Audio Militia's sound design played a functional role in that arc, shaping the emotional register of each episode and the final film. As documented on clapboard.com, the campaign film recorded 12,767 views and generated 23 likes and two comments on its primary social platform, figures that represent the documented asset rather than the full reach of the Facebook documentary series. The series ran across the South African market and connected Ryobi's Electronics, Technology, House, and Garden product range to a story of real human endurance.
Ryobi achieved 12 consecutive record months of sales in South Africa following the campaign's rollout, according to clapboard.com. That sustained commercial performance, running across the full duration of the monthly documentary series and beyond, is the campaign's most significant reported outcome and distinguishes it from campaigns that generate attention without measurable business effect.
The campaign also generated more than one million US dollars' worth of earned media PR value, and more than 8 million South Africans were reached across the campaign's documented lifespan, according to clapboard.com. In a market the size of South Africa, a reach figure of that scale — achieved through a serialised Facebook documentary format rather than a conventional broadcast media buy — represents a notably efficient use of content investment. The PR generation figure reflects the extent to which Kirsten Landman's Road to Dakar story was picked up and amplified beyond Ryobi's own paid channels, lending the brand's message the credibility that comes with third-party editorial coverage.
No independent third-party audit of these figures is publicly available, and the metrics are reported as submitted. Taken at face value, however, the combination of sustained sales records, significant earned media value, and broad South African market reach in the Electronics, Technology, House, and Garden category represents a campaign that delivered against commercial, awareness, and credibility objectives simultaneously. Ryobi's Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its strategic premise with clarity and commitment, with room for broader measurable creative impact to have been documented publicly.
Kirsten Landman is the first African female competitor to qualify for the Dakar Rally's motorbike classification. Ryobi chose her because her recovery from a life-threatening injury — a ruptured spleen that forced her to relearn to walk — directly embodied the brand's 'People and power tools that won't quit' proposition in the South African market.
Ryobi recorded 12 consecutive record months of sales following the campaign's launch. The Road to Dakar series reached more than 8 million South Africans and generated more than one million US dollars in earned PR value, according to clapboard.com. These figures cover the campaign's full documentary series run.
Retroactive, a Johannesburg-based agency, created the campaign for Ryobi in 2019. Director Samantha Nell led production through 10th Street, with Mike Sharman as executive creative director, Ben Karpinski as creative director, and Darren Kerr as executive producer. Music and sound design was handled by Audio Militia.
Ryobi ran a monthly Facebook documentary series documenting Landman's preparation throughout 2019. The series culminated in a television commercial released in November 2019. This serialised format allowed Ryobi to maintain continuous presence across the South African market ahead of the Dakar Rally in January 2020.
The Dakar Rally referenced in Ryobi's campaign ran from 5 to 17 January 2020 in Saudi Arabia. Ryobi's campaign and its monthly documentary series were timed to build South African audience engagement in the months leading directly to Landman's participation in that event.
Ryobi's campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 69 out of 100. The score reflects strong strategic coherence and clear alignment between Landman's personal story and Ryobi's brand proposition in the South African Electronics and Technology category, with scope for broader documented creative impact.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
.jpg&w=256&q=75)
.jpg&w=256&q=75)
