Fresh From The Field: Nurture the Future Within – By Curative
Designed by Curative, Nurture The Future Within is a heartfelt, multi-generational campaign that uses authentic storytelling and co-design to encourage alcohol-free pregnancies and celebrate the strength of whakapapa.
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The brief
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is entirely preventable. But in Aotearoa New Zealand, it is estimated that at least 3-5% of our population are affected by alcohol exposure before birth.
There is no known safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, making prevention through education and support vital.
It’s a sensitive subject for an awareness campaign. It requires us to acknowledge our drinking culture in Aotearoa New Zealand, to talk about safe sex, and to deeply respect people already living with FASD.
While alcohol messaging is pervasive, what emerged in our discovery phase was the innate ability we hold to make healthy decisions now to nurture future generations. When connections to our identity, whānau, future aspirations and innate strengths are nurtured, we make stronger decisions.
The design response
In order for community to connect with the campaign, we undertook a co-design process, drawing insights from those working in social services, health, advocacy, policy and indigenous innovation, as well as those with lived experience of FASD.
Alongside this, we established Te Kapa Manawa (the heartbeat) – a group of rangatahi next-generation parents from across the country. This unifying collective helped us connect to the voices, experiences and needs of the community as we developed the campaign.
Nurture The Future Within uses grounded, authentic and emotive storytelling, breathing life into the strategic insight that we are all tomorrow’s ancestors and everything we do while pregnant affects future generations.
Creatively, we were guided by the Māori whakatauki: poipoia te kākano, kia puāwai – nurture the seed and it will bloom.
From this, a key idea emerged that the future already lies within all of us. The campaign evokes this, taking us on an intimate journey through five generations of women who tell the story of how a mother carries the seed of her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and beyond.
As we move forward from generation to generation, a simple, poetic script deepens the storytelling, with our characters emphasising the message that everything we choose to consume has an impact on the generations they carry within. This messaging carefully balances encouraging healthier choices, while avoiding causing shame for those already living with FASD.
The campaign uses a rich and thoughtful graphic language that represents the layered nature of whakapapa and the unbroken thread that connects across the generations.
This visual metaphor is extended in social, web and street poster executions, where these layers, threads and grids are utilised to create an innovative and consistent design system that deftly connects the key messages across multiple outputs. A colour palette that references te taiao (the natural world) further embeds our metaphor, emulating the colours of a seed going from germination to established flora.
The campaign has been translated across social, out-of-home, in-person activations and a campaign website providing evidence-based information, resources and support for whānau.
This multi-channel approach encourages us all to collectively consider what we consume and make healthier decisions to keep pregnancies alcohol-free.
The design team
Eddy Royal, Managing Director
Kaan Hiini, Design Director
Logan Bradley, Creative Director
Pippa van Paauwe, Strategic Planner
Melanie Harries, Project Manager
Kate Prior, Senior Copywriter / Storyteller
Lauren Wepa, Senior Designer
Georgia Hoffman, Senior Producer
https://curative.co.nz@curative_nz
The client team
Health NZ – Te Whatu Ora
https://www.futurewithin.co.nz
Collaborators
Film Construction
