It has been a very successful couple of years for telco company, Spark, and Brand and Experience Chapter Lead, Sarah Williams, reflects on 2023 and how she got named a finalist for the 2024 YouTube NZ Marketing Awards.
Cross-channel integration
How have you successfully integrated Out of Home media with other marketing channels to create a cohesive and multi-faceted campaign?
My favourite recent example would be the launch of our Hello Tomorrow brand positioning. #SparkOpenAudition was an open call to all budding musicians across Aotearoa to show us what they’ve got, with the aim of helping them break into the industry.
We leaned into TikTok’s Duet functionality as a truly democratised entry point, open to everyone in the country. The initiative provided mentorship for three up and coming artists from New Zealand to receive guidance, coaching and production support at one of Aotearoa’s preeminent music production studios, Big Fan, helping them to craft their skills and produce a body of work to help them move forward.
The three mentees were showcased in a fully integrated social media content series. Highlight videos were amplified across TikTok, Meta and YouTube encouraging people to listen or live-stream as a YouTube premiere on the Spark website. We treated the finalists like musicians, with sets of OOH street posters featuring them going up two weeks prior to the show. The nation followed their mentorship and were able to follow them up to their live radio show on one of New Zealand’s largest radio stations, ZM, for the country to listen to, with a live vote campaign across social media to ask the nation to decide their favourite new artist. Finally, the winner was taken under the wing of Spark, with opportunities for live sessions and performances across the brand’s touchpoints.
Digital transformation
How have you integrated digital technology into your marketing campaigns to enhance audience engagement and campaign effectiveness?
Our ‘Made For You Review’ campaign is an example of how we’ve harnessed the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create a data-driven right planning programme that helps us recommend the best plan based on our customers’ needs. The Made For You Review programme analyses a customer’s data, messaging, and calling usage, and then recommends the best and most cost effective plan for them based on their activity. The campaign won Best Overall Marketing Campaign & Best Data Driven Marketing Campaign at the YouTube New Zealand Marketing awards last year showcasing how data can be used to create meaningful customer experiences and support campaign effectiveness.
Sustainability
In what ways have you incorporated sustainability and eco-friendly practices into your marketing initiatives?
I’d like to share a broader sustainability example. Spark’s purpose is to help all of New Zealand win big in a digital world. But we can’t all win if we can’t all participate. Digital equity is a huge challenge and one where Spark could make a difference but the first step was to ensure our people felt informed, connected and empowered. So we hosted an all day hybrid event for our entire Spark team. This event was livestreamed to our offices around New Zealand with the in-person component held at Spark Arena. ‘All In’ showcased how four groups of young influencers were doing their bit and making change. Then our people were taken through a livestream workshop to come up with ways Spark could help. There were over one thousand ideas generated and we literally blew up LinkedIn as our teams went in their masses to share their pride in Spark’s effort to bridge the digital divide.
The Marketer of the Year award is sponsored by oOh!Media. To read more about Williams’ answers, make sure to get your hands on the September-October NZ Marketing Magazine issue here.
