Brand launches · Morocco
Launch it where nobody
in your category has stood.
Press trips, creator weeks and customer launches, hosted as a wellness retreat and run end to end. The Sahara, the Atlantic and the medinas in one trip, with no other group in the frame.
Three ways to launch
Same ground, same logistics, three different rooms of people.
Editors and journalists
Press trips
Two or three nights, the launch told on the ground rather than in a showroom. A story an editor cannot get from a press release, because the setting is part of it.
Creators and ambassadors
Creator weeks
Four to seven nights with shoot time built into the programme, not squeezed around it. Several backdrops, the light planned for, and a group that is fed, moved and rested.
Your best customers
Customer launches
The people who already buy from you, first to try what comes next, hosted as a retreat. The launch becomes something they talk about for a year rather than an email they open once.
Why Morocco, and why this ground
A setting nobody in your category has shot
Our camp sits in Erg Chigaga, sixty kilometres of piste past the last tarmac. The dunes most brands film are the ones a bus reaches. These are not.
Four backdrops in one trip
Desert, Atlantic, medina and a mountain pass at 2,260 metres, within the same few days. One trip produces a season of material rather than one set of images.
No one else in the frame
One group at a time. The camp, the riad or the house is yours, so nothing in the background belongs to another brand's guests.
A crew that is moved, fed and on time
Vehicles for people and for kit, a schedule built around dawn and the last hour of light, and a photographer and videographer we can staff when you do not bring your own.
A three-day press trip, as it runs
This is The Short Way In, a format that already runs: fly into the erg, drive out the long way. Every stop on the road back is a set.
Day one
Marrakech to the erg, by air
A helicopter leaves Marrakech, crosses the High Atlas and the Draa valley, and lands at the camp's own helipad inside Erg Chigaga. The reveal at the last hour of light on the dunes. The night at the camp, with the nomad families who live in that erg.
Day two
Dawn, then the long way out
First light in the dunes for the shoot that matters most. Then by private 4x4 along the piste to M'Hamid, the Draa palm groves and ksour, and Ait Ben Haddou. The night in a kasbah near Ouarzazate.
Day three
Over the pass, back to Marrakech
The Tizi n'Tichka pass at 2,260 metres, Berber villages of the High Atlas, and an argan or rose cooperative depending on the season. Back in Marrakech by late afternoon.
Six to fourteen guests, late September to early June. The same route can be flown both ways as two days, or driven in and flown out. Creator weeks add the Atlantic at Taghazout or Essaouira.
The sets
Each one is a different brief, and all four sit within a few hours of each other.
The Sahara, Erg Chigaga
Dunes with no road in them, a private camp, a helipad, and a sky with no light in it at night.
Taghazout, the Atlantic
Surf, long beaches and cold water in January. Movement, sport and anything that needs the sea.
Essaouira
A fortified medina, wind and blue light. Ramparts, fishing boats and a quieter, older palette.
Marrakech
Riads, courtyards and rooftops. The launch dinner, the medina, and the easiest arrival in the country.
What the brand keeps
All the material
Every photograph and every minute of film made on the trip is yours to use, with no time limit.
The story
The launch is yours and so is the narrative. Umnya is not in the frame unless you want it to be.
The ground, for your category
Category exclusivity can be held per destination and per season, so the next brand in your aisle does not arrive on the same dunes a month later.
Questions a brand asks first
- Can we launch a product in the Sahara?
- Yes. Umnya owns a private camp in Erg Chigaga with its own helipad, sixty kilometres of piste past the last tarmac, and hosts launches there for press, creators or customers, one group at a time.
- How many guests can a press trip take?
- The three-day format takes six to fourteen guests. Creator weeks and customer launches run up to twenty. Larger programmes run as successive groups.
- Can you provide a photographer and videographer?
- Yes. Umnya can staff a photographer and videographer for the trip, or host your own crew and move their kit. All material made on the trip belongs to the brand.
- Which locations can a shoot use?
- The Sahara at Erg Chigaga, the Atlantic at Taghazout, the medina and ramparts of Essaouira, the riads and rooftops of Marrakech, and the High Atlas road including the Tizi n'Tichka pass and Ait Ben Haddou.
- Do you arrange flights for press and creators?
- No. International flights, insurance and visas stay with the brand. Everything on the ground in Morocco, from the airport onward, including the helicopter leg, is Umnya's.
- When is the best season for a desert launch?
- Late September to early June. The camp does not open in July or August. The Atlantic is at its best for surf between September and April.
- How is this different from sponsoring an Umnya retreat?
- Sponsorship puts a brand beside the athletes and guests of Umnya's own retreats. A launch is the brand's own event, with its own guests and its own story, run on Umnya's ground.
- How far ahead should a launch be planned?
- Three to six months is comfortable, earlier for October to April desert dates. A written proposal with an all-in figure follows within a week of the first conversation.
Tell us what you are launching.
The product, who you want there, and roughly when. A written proposal follows within a week, with the figure in it.
Brief us on a launch→Or write to journeys@umnya.co. Everything else we produce: wellness events in Morocco