Mānuka Charitable Trust
Making mana and mauri tangible for an international audience.
International creative campaign to protect the mana and mauri of Mānuka worldwide.
Roles / Capabilities
Creative Strategy, Creative Direction, Stakeholder Management, Discovery, Concept Development, Scriptwriting, Storyboarding, Producing, Production Planning, Casting, Talent Agreements, Location Permitting, Crew Management, Directing, Editing, Motion Design, AI Workflow Design, Delivery
The Brief
Objective
Develop an international campaign that advanced the Mānuka Charitable Trust’s mission to protect the mana and mauri of Mānuka while communicating that mission in a way that international audiences could understand and connect with.
Challenge
Previous Ipsos research indicated that European consumers responded to the idea of provenance — the people and place behind the product — but became less engaged when presented with more culturally and spiritually specific concepts such as mana and mauri because they did not readily understand how those ideas were relevant to them. The campaign therefore needed to remain authentic to the Trust’s mission while making those concepts meaningful to international audiences. The production also had to navigate evolving restrictions around what could and could not be said about Mānuka, multiple stakeholders with different perspectives, cultural considerations, budget limitations and timeframe constraints.
Key Constraints
Cultural translation, unfamiliar Māori concepts for international audiences, evolving language restrictions, stakeholder complexity, budget constraints, timeframe constraints.
The Solution
Solution
Develop a narrative centred on a father teaching his son about Mānuka and why it matters. The dialogue could explicitly communicate information such as the Māori name of the tree, its deep connection to place and history, and its healing properties, while the relationship, visuals and setting expressed provenance, intergenerational knowledge and connection to the whenua through story rather than abstract explanation.
The production also used original photographs and artwork created for the campaign as source material for selective AI-assisted B-roll. Where obtaining a very specific moving shot conventionally would have required substantial travel, location searching, ideal weather and additional shoot time, original photographs of the required subject and environment could instead be combined using AI-assisted video generation. This extended the production’s visual scope while keeping the workflow grounded in original campaign imagery.
Managed stakeholders and discovery meetings, developed the creative approach and script, created storyboards, worked through stakeholder concerns until script approval, planned and directed the film shoot, managed production requirements and creative logistics, and completed the editing, motion graphics and final delivery while continuing to manage stakeholders throughout the project.
Ownership Summary
Led the project from discovery and creative development through stakeholder approval, production, directing, post-production and final delivery.
How It Came Together
Creating bespoke B-roll from original photography
Illustrative process reconstruction
An illustrative reconstruction of the AI-assisted workflow used during the Mānuka Charitable Trust production. The specific source images and generated output shown here were created separately for this portfolio demonstration and were not used in the actual unreleased campaign.
Combine
AI-assisted generation
Seedance
Input
Demo Photograph
Original environment photograph
AI-assisted generation
Result
AI-assisted moving shot
Outcome
The completed campaign was soft-launched in Paris ahead of its wider international public release. The final work received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the relevant stakeholders, including a diverse board with members from different iwi. The principal current outcome is the completed campaign film itself; international campaign-performance data is not yet available.
Attribution
Credits / Key Collaborators
Agency: Seen Ventures. Production Company: Pēnei Productions. Additional individual collaborator credits to be added later where appropriate.
Client
Mānuka Charitable Trust
Agency
Seen Ventures
Production Company
Pēnei Productions