Motion Manor’s mission to be the UK’s ‘No 1 B2B Ethical Animation Studio’ may sound far-fetched. Indeed, when we set up Motion Manor during a global pandemic, our friends and family thought we were absolutely bonkers! But from small acorns, oak trees grow, right?
The pandemic cut our dream travel around Asia short, leaving us with a bad case of the holiday blues, a pile of un-refunded accommodations and travel costs leaving us dry and a sudden adjustment to a 30°C temperature drop. To say we were in a slump was an understatement.
We were hoping that the adventure would help us refresh, as well as gain some new perspective and clarity, following a severe case of burnout.
It’s fair to say after a 30-hour panic journey back to the UK, with three flights, two layovers and wearing a mask for so long it felt like it had melded with our faces wasn’t what we had in mind. We were in a worse place mentally than when we started.
Trying to be optimists we looked for the silver lining, but this is what life felt like.
In spite of the difficulties, eventually, we knew this may be a blessing in disguise, an opportunity to take a chance and to do something different. As Albert Einstein once famously said, “in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
Fast forward 19 months, and Motion Manor, The Ethical Animation Studio is trying to change the world with video, one audience at a time.
But why? What made us want to be more Ethical and Sustainable?
Travelling, seeing various parts of the world, and meeting some amazing people along the way showed us the importance of preserving the world’s natural habitat and its species. We cannot ignore and continue on the way things were and we wanted to be an activist through the work we do and in our daily life, being ethical, living sustainably, practising a vegan lifestyle and supporting other businesses that have a similar vision to ours. These all combined helped us push forward to build Motion Manor, The Ethical Animation Studio.
Now that we’ve covered our backstory, let’s get into what makes us on track to the UK’s ‘No 1 B2B Ethical Animation Studio’. By the way, these are steps that you too can take to make your business one step closer to making a positive impact, big or small.
For us, aligning our personal ethics with how we make a living and how we present ourselves as Motion Manor was vital. We wanted our work to make a sincere impact, this in turn would allow us to work with purpose-driven businesses that had similar values to us. Even if they may not fully share our values, we feel that it is our obligation to practice what we preach to further inspire those in others.
In order to do that we had to clearly communicate what our brand vision, mission, and values were to our audience.
Having a defined brand vision and mission allows your business to clearly convey its purpose, objectives and how it plans to serve its customers. In a nutshell, it gives you a crystal-clear compass to look at every time you’re making a decision, putting together a strategy, hiring an employee or taking on a new project.
The Motion Manor team are going to continue to wear these brand goals and values on our sleeves and take clear tangible steps to be a more ethical and sustainable business.
There’s no doubt that we’re facing a climate crisis.
There is an abundance of things we can do to minimise our carbon footprint, as a business and personally.
As a result, we practice a wide range of ethical commitments to move this in the right direction. Ranging from but not limited to:
Now, before anyone gets offended, we want to make it clear that anything you can do to leave the planet a better place than you found it is WONDERFUL! Whether you’re vegan, carbon negative, plant trees or use LED light bulbs. Good on you!
After challenging ourselves to think of a unique way in which we can give back, we realised there are too many incredible stories out there not being told, too many wonderful missions falling short and too many causes getting drowned out by all of the noise.
So, at the Motion Manor, we have decided to put aside a portion of our profits into a video content fund for causes. This fund allows us to bring together creatives to collaborate to create larger marketing campaigns for wonderfully deserving non-profit organisations.
*Pictured Here: Winning The Buddy Bag Foundation's company of the month award for donating an animated video for their incredible cause, supporting children in Emergency Care https://buddybagfoundation.co.uk/.
We constantly asked ourselves at every level of our business, is this ‘all’ we can do? Whether donating time, delivering on content or making an impact.
So, we challenge you to ask yourself, is that all ‘you’ can do?
Anybody can pay to plant a tree, but not everybody can do what you do. What is your unique skill set, experience or history and how can you leverage that to make the BIGGEST impact?
This is the section we assume to draw the most debate, as we won’t ‘exclusively’ work with heaven art thou brands.
We believe communication is absolutely essential on our journey of positively impacting the world, and conversations go two ways. For us to share and inspire, we must be able to listen. Sometimes, this means listening to points of view we may disagree with.
Whilst our preference is purpose-driven brands and non-profit organisations, we also love collaborating with individuals and companies who may not be ethically directed. By interacting with these brands, we can continue to communicate, share and inspire audiences outside of the sustainability sector.
After all, our Directors are vegan, but once upon a time… they weren’t. People change, and just because some businesses aren’t making those positive changes yet, doesn’t mean they won’t.
There are a few businesses we would choose not to work with, and this will be chosen on a case-by-case basis in line with our values and what the objective of the project is.
Our goal is to become the UK’s
'No 1 Ethical Animation Studio’ AKA THE industry leader in positive sustainability practice within the B2B Animation industry.
We acknowledge we are a work in progress, and we always will be.
There is always more we can learn, there is always room for growth. Our focus isn’t on being perfect, our focus is on striving towards being better in ethical practice and animated content.
We will continuously look for ways to challenge and improve ourselves.
Along the way we’ll make mistakes, we’ll learn, and we’ll grow. What matters is we’re moving in the right direction and leading by example to inspire others to do the same.
We are currently working on our Ethical Pledge Document which gives you the breakdown of all the changes we’ve made and the objectives we’re working towards. You will be able to download our Ethical Pledge Document in the next few weeks!
And finally, your mission (should you choose to accept it!) is to join us on our journey by subscribing to our newsletter in the footer below, where we will share more information on our ethical progress, tips on how you can make positive change, as well as, expert guidance on how to make the most out of video content. Until next time!
