His climate story stayed his

The situation

In 2021, BMW introduced the updated iX3: the first fully electric variant in the X range, with a range of around 450 kilometres and zero local CO₂ emissions. Plenty of technology to talk about. But an electric car doesn't sell itself on specifications alone, sustainability is a claim every brand makes, and audiences see through it faster than brands would like.

What the campaign needed wasn't an ambassador who could pronounce the word "sustainable," but someone for whom it had been the core of his work for years. Someone with proof. We paired BMW with Roderick Pijls, professional kitesurfer. He has kitesurfed inside a volcanic crater in Iceland, on the toxic, scorching Lake Natron in Tanzania, and between ice floes under the northern lights. Not as a stunt: he documented melting glaciers in Greenland, filmed coal mines in Colombia, and travelled climate-neutrally to the Lofoten Islands by sailboat, electric train and electric car.

For an athlete like Roderick, a commercial partnership like this carries risks. The story he had built over the years — the ocean as both playground and a cause he fights for — could evaporate in a campaign into little more than a face next to a car. And then he loses his credibility, and the brand loses the one thing that made the campaign genuinely distinctive.

What we did

Our role was consultancy: we brought both sides together and represented Roderick at the negotiating table.

• Made the match. We connected Roderick to BMW for this campaign — not on reach or follower counts, but on substance: a brand committing to electric mobility and an athlete already using his sport to show what is at stake.
• Put the story ahead. Before any money was discussed, we established what the partnership was actually about. Not "athlete drives car," but the parallel Roderick draws himself between sailing on wind and driving without sound — a starting point that holds up on both sides
• Represented Roderick in the negotiations. We led the conversations with BMW on his behalf, so he could focus on his sport career and the the substance rather than on terms.
• Anchored his core values in the agreement. His climate position is not a campaign element; it's his premise. The agreement established that he would not be steered on it: in the campaign he speaks the same language he speaks outside it, including the uncomfortable parts about his own travel.
• Negotiated on brand value, not on deliverable per post. An athlete putting his credibility on the line is offering something other than advertising space. We named that difference and translated it into terms: including image usage, duration, and what happens to the material after the campaign ends.
• Left room for international rollout. The campaign began in the Dutch market. The agreement anticipated that the brand might want to take the story further, which meant that when it did, it was a logical next step rather than a renegotiation.

What it delivered

The campaign ran in 2021 on BMW's Dutch channels: first a teaser introducing Roderick and the iX3, then the main film in which he talks about the car and what drives him.

It didn't stop there. BMW published an international interview with Roderick on BMW.com, placing his mission, his expeditions and the iX3 side by side, and devoted a full episode of its global podcast Changing Lanes to him — 43 minutes on his relationship with the sea, his sustainability mission and the parallels between kitesurfing and driving electric. In the Netherlands, different titles picked up the story.

That is the difference between an athlete who fits a campaign and an athlete who adds something to it. A face beside a car gets one film. A story that holds up gets three channels and 43 minutes of airtime — and that airtime was about his subject, not only about the product..

"With sport mode switched on and the sound switched off, driving feels like sailing."— Roderick Pijls, in het interview op BMW.com (2021)

Exactly the line the whole thing turned on: not a sales pitch, but an observation only someone with enough hours on the water could make and mean.

Why this works

Sponsorship tends to go wrong at the moment the contract is signed. The brand buys reach, the athlete delivers reach, and the story: the only thing separating a campaign from an advertisement appears in none of the appendices.

We put it in. An athlete who lends his credibility to a brand needs to still have that credibility afterwards. And that isn't only in his interest: a brand that drains a story is left holding nothing. Negotiating on core values and brand worth isn't a soft footnote to the deal. It is the deal.

Communication, marketing and sponsorship are one discipline.