CASE STUDY / MANUKA HEALTH
Repositioning a Honey Brand into a Luxury Wellness Powerhouse with Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing / Celebrity & Influencer Partnerships / Performance Marketing / Audience Targeting & Segmentation / Integrated Marketing / Content Marketing
Manuka Health, originally recognized for its accessible manuka honey offerings, undertook a bold rebrand to reposition itself as a premium wellness and skincare brand. This transformation included the introduction of elevated packaging, expansion into new product categories, and a shift to premium pricing. By moving away from a price-sensitive consumer base, the brand set its sights on a more affluent, wellness-conscious audience.
CHALLENGE
The manuka honey category has traditionally been driven by competition and price. To stand out, Manuka Health needed to move beyond transactional marketing and instead captivate consumers through compelling storytelling, aesthetic branding, and a lifestyle-forward appeal. The challenge lay in engaging a new type of customer - one driven less by deals and more by a desire for quality, self-care, and wellness.
To reflect the brand's premium repositioning, 5WPR executed a comprehensive overhaul of its digital presence across five core pillars: public relations, social media, influencer marketing, email marketing, and paid media. Each channel was optimized to reinforce the brand's new luxury identity.
In email marketing, we developed a suite of elevated templates and lifecycle flows that aligned with the brand's visual transformation and premium ethos. These emails emphasized storytelling and aesthetics at every touchpoint. For paid media, we implemented full-funnel campaigns that moved away from discount-led messaging. Instead, we focused on creative that highlighted product quality, holistic wellness benefits, and the brand's premium positioning, tailored specifically to its ideal customer profile.
Audience targeting and testing played a pivotal role in our approach. Guided by in-depth research, we built and validated new audience segments that aligned with the evolving brand persona. We also explored adjacent, high-value consumer groups to uncover untapped market opportunities.
To amplify the brand's new image, we partnered with creators who embodied the luxury wellness lifestyle. These influencers produced aspirational yet relatable content that helped engage and convert new audiences across Meta and Google platforms.
STRATEGY
RESULTS
The brand was successfully repositioned in the digital landscape, shifting from a value-focused honey brand to a premium wellness powerhouse. Email marketing saw increased engagement thanks to refined content and upscale design. A/B testing revealed top-performing ad angles and audience segments, while luxury-aligned creative assets boosted click-through rates and improved return on ad spend. Additionally, we cultivated a pipeline of high-performing creators who effectively embodied and communicated the brand's elevated identity.
Repositioning into the luxury space demands more than aesthetic upgrades - it requires a consistent evolution across storytelling, targeting, and the entire customer experience. Early testing of creative themes and audience segments enables smarter, data-driven optimization. Moreover, creator partnerships and digital marketing serve as a powerful tool for visually communicating premium positioning and driving conversions in an increasingly crowded market.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
