Spark New Zealand won four awards for Spark Game Arena Live.
| Winner | Spark New Zealand |
| Marketing initiative | Spark Game Arena Live |
| Marketing partners | Colenso BBDO, PHD, SPUR, Satellite, Lets Play Live, Bastion Shine, BUCK |
| Finalists | Abe’s Bagels, Animates NZ, AT, F&P Healthcare, Fletcher Living, Goodman Fielder, Kiwibank, Norsewear, One NZ, Pak’nSave, Raukatauri Music Therapy Trust, Summerset Retirement Villages, The NZ Herpes Foundation, Westpac |
| Judges’ comments | “Among a pool of high-calibre category winners, Spark’s entry stood out as a brave, innovative and future-focused strategy – closely aligned with business objectives, that delivered both customer and commercial impact. In a highly competitive segment, where doing the same thing was never going to cut it, marketing influenced Spark’s leadership team to take a bold step and differentiate against competitors. With a strategy grounded in rich cultural insights, they were able to connect with their audience in an authentic, meaningful way – while navigating the complexities that come with a brand new initiative of this scale. With strong commitment from the organisation to build on these foundations – the judges felt Spark is now well placed to own their future.” |
Excellence in Utilities/Communications Marketing Strategy
| Finalists | 2degrees (two initiatives), One NZ, Skinny |
| Judges’ comments | “An outstanding, complex and comprehensive programme, superbly executed. The Spark team identified a key, underserved and highly sceptical market and undertook a comprehensive and innovative programme to deliver an insightful and highly effective programme. They achieved amazing launch results and built a platform for future growth. A clear and well-deserved winner in a highly competitive category.” |
Excellence in Sponsorship Strategy
| Finalists | Beef + Lamb NZ, Burger King NZ, Lexus, Nestlé NZ, One NZ, Restaurant Brands – KFC NZ (two initiatives), Restaurant Brands NZ, Westpac |
| Judges’ comments | “Great alignment with business strategy. We liked how you identified an opportunity and executed against a relevant subculture. This strategy will be foundational for your sponsorship activity moving forward, whether that’s as a sponsor or sponsorship property. Epic result.” |
Excellence in Travel/Leisure & Entertainment Marketing Strategy
| Finalists | Air New Zealand, Auckland Transport |
| Judges’ comments | “Strong insights that reinforce the decision to create an event-based initiative. Great way to drive credibility and business results with a valuable consumer segment. Exceptional execution of strategy where you overcame significant challenges.” |
Game on for new player
Spark could have crashed into gaming, waving dollars like every other ‘n00b’ brand, or actually do something for the community. It chose doing.
When Spark New Zealand set foot in the gaming arena, the team knew it could make or break the brand. “Brands love ruining the things we love. They find something pure, joyful – then slap a giant logo on it,” the telco notes.
Gamers despise brands trying to force their way in: they keep receipts, make memes and diss you in Discord servers you never knew existed, Spark says.
Gaming isn’t a traditional area of play for a telco, but Spark had to do something radically different to stand out in a fiercely competitive market.
Own the future
Spark wanted to draw attention to its large, advanced broadband and mobile network. But talking about speed wasn’t enough to get people’s attention.
“So, we stopped talking about speed – and started owning the future. And the future is gaming.”
Despite gaming being a major cultural export for Aotearoa and 79% of Kiwis identifying as gamers, no major brands had invested in it.
Spark saw this as its opportunity to act as a builder of gaming culture, aligning with its brand belief, Hello Tomorrow: that technology should create opportunities for all Kiwis.
Let the games begin
The concept of Spark Game Arena Live was born: a major gaming festival held at Spark Arena.
For Spark, it wasn’t just entering a new space with gaming but also trying to build legitimacy for a whole category.
Knowing gamers can smell “corporate BS” a mile away, partnerships with global and local leaders were crucial. These relationships connected Spark with the harder-to-reach gamer audiences and amplified its own credibility in this space.
Spark connected with a raft of brands as well as the NZ Game Developers Association, NZ Esports, Lets Play Live and Digital Natives Academy.
“We immersed ourselves deeply in the world of NZ gamers. We spoke to competitive esports players, streamers, casual couch gamers, mobile warriors and the people building the local industry from the ground up.”
Convincing sponsors to come on board before the event existed was a challenge – it took six months of negotiating 168 versions of contracts in three continents.
Spark also knew the festival had to win over “the core” – passionate players who define what’s cool and what’s cringe.
“If we could win their trust, the broader community would follow. Get it wrong, and we’d be out.”
This led Spark to create a real-world co-op game to play at the festival.
Who won, who they were up against and what the judges had to say.
We bring you all the details for every category in the YouTube NZ Marketing Awards 2025.
Won the country’s attention
The game, Killabyte – based on the original Snake game – saw Byte, a giant digi snake, roaming on screens. Festivalgoers could scan wristbands at every touchpoint to earn points and bring the collective closer to defeating Byte. It was the event’s most popular game, even outperforming Fortnite and Call of Duty.
The festival certainly got the country’s attention: there were 23 earned media features across The New Zealand Herald, 1News and The Spinoff.
On social media, engagement with Spark “exploded”, says the telco, seeing an 26% increase in engagement on YouTube and 18% and 18.5% on TikTok and Meta respectively.
Follower counts also increased 74% on YouTube, 110% on Instagram and 1507% on TikTok. Spark Game Arena Live also increased Spark’s consideration among gamers.
Spark says it learned the importance of community-first thinking, the power and complexity of building partnerships while working under tight timelines.
It also learnt the value of measuring success through both cultural impact and business outcomes. Immediate ROI wasn’t the primary goal, but the results proved building cultural relevance can lead to significant business returns.
This story comes from NZ Marketing magazine issue 84, Sept-Nov 2025. Why not subscribe? Get four issues a year for just $50 (including delivery) if you autorenew.
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