BRAND + IDENTITY + CULTURE + STORY + CAMPAIGNS
​Karl works at the strategic end of identity, brand and story at an enterprise, regional and national level, with a particular strength in integrating indigenous culture in meaningful, defensible and compelling ways to add value and create impact.

NZ STORY: MĀORI PARTNERSHIP STORY
Global promotion of Māori enterprise.
Karl played a lead role in developing the 'Māori Partnership Story' to drive attraction and connection with Māori enterprise, supporting growth in global trade.  Karl worked on all aspects of the project from writing the story to creating the story architecture, to key messages, identifying and recruiting talent, to interview scripting for video production, to overseeing production and development of the wider suite of content and 'How to' guides for Māori enterprise and government leveraging and presenting the story.  This project built on 15yrs of insights and deep analysis to craft a story founded in truth, based on evidence, and sense checked against market perceptions research.

NZ STORY:  NGĀ MĀTĀPONO - OUR COUNTRY'S VALUES.
Winner Global Place Brand of the Year 2024.
Karl has acted as a Kaiārahi Māori, cultural and creative lead, for the New Zealand Story programme since 2012. Recently that included development of ‘Ngā Mātāpono’ our country's values that underpin our national identity and how the world sees us, winner of the prestigious ‘Place brand of the year’ award at the 2024 City Nation Place Awards.  Karl played a lead role in shaping the values resulting from a rigourous onshore engagement process and offshore testing, as described in this 'explainer' video featuring Karl.

TE MATAU-A-MĀUI
Regional cultural identity
Karl initiated and led development of a cross-entity collaborative project between Hawke’s Bay Tourism, Ngā Toi Creative Hawke’s Bay and Ngāti Kahungunu, to bring to life the story of ‘Te Matau-a-Māui’, a story synonymous with the identity of the Hawke’s Bay region, for the purpose of regional promotions whilst uplifting cultural identity and visibility.  This resulted in delivery of a website tematauamaui.com with a hero video featuring master story-teller Ngahiwi Tomoana, place based stories, narratives, brand and guides for use.

TE WĀ TUKU REO - MĀORI LANGUAGE MOMENT
Grand Prix International Public Relations Association (IPRA) Golden Awards for Excellence (GWA) 2021.
When Covid hit, Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, the Māori Language Commission reached out to Karl in need of help to rethink how they might deliver 'Māori Language Week' without the ability to physically gather. The central idea developed was to identify a single time and day and to encourage people to speak te reo Māori at that moment.  The campaign and movement went viral and saw a target of 1 million speakers exceeded. Digital Campaign Agency For Purpose developed an incredible campaign site to 'crowd-source' input and engage people in an online community where they got to upload pictures, video and messages about their 'moment' as well as sharing their 'why' in terms of what Māori language means to them. The site provides intel that now supports Māori language revitalisation strategy.

TOURISM NZ BRAND REVIEW
Winner Purple & Gold Pin BEST Awards.
Karl was engaged by Tourism NZ to lead the cultural direction of a review and reposition of the hugely successful world leading Tourism NZ 100% PURE campaign in 2015 following years of leveraging Peter Jackson's globally successful 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy.  It was time for a refocus and reposition as that entered its sunset phase and a new openness to embracing Māori culture was emerging.  The challenge was evolving one of the worlds most successful tourism campaigns in subtle ways across multiple touch-points to create a new brand essence.  Karl worked alongside TBWA\ and engaged leading Māori artist Rangi Kipa alongside font designer Kris Sowersby to bring the new identity to life.  One of those new elements was the award winning bespoke font, PURE Pākati.

MORIORI IMI SETTLEMENT TRUST
Brand, web, video and content development.
The Moriori Imi Settlement Trust is a 'Post Settlement Governance Entity' established to receive and manage tribal Treaty settlement assets and responsibilities in accordance with a Deed of Settlement.  Karl, as a Moriori Imi (tribe) member, a former trustee in the 1990s and leader of development of the award winning brand for the Hokotehi Moriori Trust in 2007, was called on for this new project which entailed developing the full brand suite and guide, web architecture, copy-writing, imagery, video content and UI design. Karl travelled to Rēkohu with his son Sam to undertake a photographic and video shoot conducting face-to-camera interviews with trustees and elders - producing a number of themed videos for different parts of the website and building a photographic library of assets.  For Sam, as a young designer, this project acted as an induction into Moriori history and culture.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC & TOURISM NZ
Exploring Manaaki
Karl was engaged by Tourism NZ to act as a cultural advisor and guide for a National Geographic shoot in New Zealand featuring some visitors engaging with Māori culture and experiences, exploring the meaning of manaaki, a unique form of indigenous hospitality, care, respect and generosity.  Karl accompanied the team on shoot providing advice to the production team including supporting their interface with Māori in matters of cultural protocol, and spent time talking with the visitors about Māori culture.

HUI MĀORI COLLECTIVE.
A world first Māori export collective for China e-commerce.
Karl was engaged by NZTEs Coalitions Team in partnership with Poutama Trust to lead brand development and strategy to create a world first indigenous TMall on the Alibaba platform for China market e-commerce with 10 Māori F&B exporters. The collective also became the first Collective FernMark licensee and developed a first Cultural Assurance programme alongside Quality Assurance with Assure Quality.  Karl pulled together a creative team and worked alongside Chinese design, market and language experts through a truly cross-cultural codesign collab to deliver a highly compelling brand and story for Chinese consumers.  This project broadened the concept of brand to include engagement of Māori musician Tiki Taane as a brand ambassador and Karl writing a waiata (song) for Collective members to sing at events when exercising tikanga, customary cultural protocols.

PLAY NZ. TOURISM NZ Covid Campaign.
D&AD graphite and wood pencil awards winner 2020.
​Play NZ is a tourism campaign developed by TBWA\ Sydney for the Australian office of Tourism NZ. Aussies make up 50% of all travellers to New Zealand, but with international borders closed Tourism New Zealand needed a way to keep the country top of mind.  Karl was engaged by Tourism NZ to act as a Māori cultural creative lead for TBWA\ Sydney who had already developed the concept, undertaken shoot and commenced building a campaign that gave rise to some cultural concerns. Karl worked with the TBWA\ and Tourism NZ team to completely reframe the story-line, characters and creative strategy for how it was presented, including design of cultural elements, successfully converting what risked becoming 'cultural cringe' into award winning 'cultural gold'.

TUKU MĀORI WINE-MAKERS COLLECTIVE.
Māori export collective.
Karl was engaged by NZTEs Coalitions Team to lead development of brand and market strategy  for an emergent collective of Māori Wine-makers. This involved a wide strategic approach, mostly undertaken through hui (meetings) and facilitated wānanga (workshops) with Collective members. The early wānanga were about exploring what the partnership could look like and what each partner needs and expects from it, clarifying their 'why', shared values and value proposition.  This was translated into a range of brand concepts including names, imagery, logo design, values descriptors, and story-lines, to test in key markets through NZTE offices and personnel as well as through some in-market events in the USA. The market testing provided clear brand, story and imagery directions for the collective which were translated into finished designs and collateral.  The collective is now poised for growth.

NZ STORY: MĀORI BUSINESS STORIES. 
Sharing stories of global Māori businesses.
Karl led development of a series of Māori Business Stories as part of the NZ Story programme to showcase globally connected Māori businesses across Primary sector (Kono), Tech (Straker Translations), Tourism (Ngāi Tahu Tourism) and partnership (Tawapata South Inc and Rocket Lab).  These stories were designed to present some of the diversity, innovation and essence of modern Māori business, beyond the prevailing global images of tā moko, haka, hongi, and hangi.  These stories were used for offshore events and missions and provided valuable insights for developing a collective 'Māori Partnership Story'.

OHU AHUMAHI  WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT COUNCILS
Client side Brand lead.
As a member of the Toi Mai Workforce Development Council I accepted a lead role across all of the six workforce development councils and shared services entity for the purpose of developing bi-lingual naming and development of a brand suite for all six entities.  Once we had Māori names confirmed I wrote the brand brief for sign-off from all 7 entities and facilitated an RFP process from a small number of Māori creative agencies to deliver.  We appointed RUN as the creative agency and I worked closely with them on developing the brand strategy for which they developed a range of options resulting in the final 'taura here' design giving each their own unique identity but being able to function as a brand family. I also developed the colour system rationale based on alignment with their name and functions.

KĀHUI AHUMAHI
Ohu Ahumahi / Workforce Development Councils (WDCs) - Māori Governors.
As an establishment board member of Toi Mai Workforce Development and one of the founders of Kāhui Ahumahi, the Māori Governors leadership group across all six WDCs, I was part of leading the Māori and Te Tiriti focus in the Reform of Vocational Education.  It was quite a journey and one the Kāhui decided was worth capturing, 'lest we forget' what we went through which at times felt like a battle.  The WDCs are now being disestablished due to a new government change of policy - kicking 5+ years of progress to the curb.  I was engaged to develop a brand for the Kāhui, a name which represents both a group of leaders, as well as a flock of birds, as well as capturing the journey and story of the Kāhui founders through the establishment period.

EDUCATION NEW ZEALAND MANAPOU KI TE AO
Kaiārahi role / cultural & creative guide.
Education New Zealand, an agency responsible for International Education, engaged my services to support a brand refresh.  As part of that I worked with Ed Tuari as their Manukura, Chief Advisor Māori, and Māori language expert Te Haumihiata Mason to develop the organisational name 'Manapou ki te ao' derived from the story of the Kākā bringing the manapou seed from Hawaiiki and planting it in the soil here, representing the distribution of seeds that nourish.  I worked on whole of organisation integration, one example is development of the 'Manatoa' award to recognise staff who exude 'Ngā manapou' a set of organisational values.  It is a peer recognition programme and recipients are gifted a Manapou pounamu carving I designed and commissioned representing the Kākā beak grasping a Manapou kernel. This was a whole of business integration approach reaching every touch point from values, to strategy, to role titles, to programmes.