"Enter Jenny Ruyter. Played by South African actor Anne Hirsch, the iconic Jenny Ruyter is here to help South Africans keep the lights on during power outages with Takealot's wide range of load shedding products," says Takealot. 

"As a rather awkward, off-beat character, Ruyter can be seen around the Takealot offices, tirelessly working to bring energy and solutions during power outages," Takealot adds. 

According to Takealot, the campaign stems from the data drawn from shopper behaviour, where "UPS" was the third most-searched term in 2022. Since December 2020, Takealot has seen 3 000% GMV growth in the sale of generators, inverters and UPS devices, indicating the need for load shedding mitigation solutions across the country.

Overall, the purpose of Ruyter's job is to help educate South Africans about what products could match their unique needs during load shedding. This is something she's deeply passionate about, and she's always available to lend a helping hand, says Takealot.

Since the deputy of the first episode it has amassed over 3.1 million views across channels, illustrating how South Africans can famously find humour in even the direst situations, Takealot adds.

To formulate the campaign, Takealot says it had considered key aspects that would resonate deeply with South Africans. This includes crafting a message that’' relevant and relatable to the local context of load shedding and strategic product placement to tie the idea together.

"On YouTube, this campaign performed exceptionally well for a number of reasons — following Google's ABCDs of creative guidance, the video started off with compelling creative to attract and hook the audience, with novel branding elements throughout," says Toluse Akinlabi, senior retail account manager at Google.

"The video also included a product feed of relevant items that complemented the content, ensuring that an interested audience was able to find related products directly from takealot.com," concludes Akinlabi. 

Across Takealot digital platforms, Jenny Ruyter's load shedding solutions antics (episode one) has so far resulted in:
  • 1.7 million views on TikTok
  • 18 800 views on Instagram
  • 294 000 views on Facebook, and
  • 1.1 million views on YouTube.

"But Ruyter's story is far from over," concludes Takelot. 



For more information, visit www.takealot.com. You can also follow Takealot on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.