For the first time in New Zealand, Spark and Spotify have teamed up to bring together #MyFestivalStory, which will provide those going to Rhythm & Vines or Rhythm & Alps with a personalised digital snapshot of their experience through RFID technology.
Following the recent unveiling of its ambitious ‘Boroughs’ project, which will see five high-tech basketball courts introduced in Auckland, Spark has now announced a marketing partnership with the National Basketball Association. As part of this deal, Spark will offer its home broadband customers NBA League Pass and League Pass Premium annual subscriptions beginning next month, giving customers 15 percent off the full price of either a full season or a one-month subscription.
In a bid to get Spark connected with young Aucklanders, a group it struggled to reach in the Telecom days, the company is partnering with Kiwi NBA player Steven Adams and the Auckland council to bring five high-tech basketball courts to the city.
Garden emperors, tomorrow’s basketball stars, Hobbit pilots, and regular Kiwis make an appearance in the latest edition of the weekly TVC rundown.
Steven Adams’ entertaining teaser video ‘Secret Codes’ for Spark’s mysterious basketball-related campaign clocked in with over 72,000 views—and all without any paid media support. Now he’s back for the second instalment, once again alongside Reggie Jackson, and it looks like he’s planning on doing something about the poor state of New Zealand’s outdoor courts *wink, wink*.
Spark is on a mission to win over the Kiwi masses by offering deals that match the changing habits of its audiences. This started with the telco giving its subscribers access to Spotify Premium, and it is now being continued with a new offer, dubbed Socialiser, that gives social media consumers one gig of free data per month to use via the Twitter and Facebook apps.
A bull-riding babe, a sightseeing couple and an eyebrow-raising basketballer get a gold sticker this week.
Spark gave New Zealand a bit of tease before it launched its new ‘Never Stop Starting’ campaign with some unbranded billboards and digital ads. And there’s some more mystery afoot, with a teaser video featuring Kiwi NBA star Steven Adams being released last night.
Aside from one small and entertaining Cupertino Effect-related glitch and some criticism of the Thanks reward scheme, most would agree the Spark rebrand went extremely smoothly given how big it was. And it’s continuing its quest for the hearts and minds of younger Aucklanders—and keeping with the trend towards creating experiences rather than just running ads—with the launch of Spark Lab, a new innovation and ideas workshop in Britomart.
“Orcon is shining the spotlight on bandwidth throttling used by big telcos, including Vodafone and Spark, in a new campaign that encourages Kiwis to look at the fine print before signing up to broadband plans that could unnecessarily be slowing then down,” touts the media release from Orcon that accompanies the launch of its new campaign featuring a plum-dressed dictator of ambigious origin removing the wig of what is meant to be the chief executive of a major telco (seemingly Spark, if the colour scheme of the faux promotional material is anything to go by). UPDATE: ASA confirms that complaints have been lodged.
Several weeks ago, Spark released the latest iteration of its ‘Never Stop Starting’ positioning via a 30-second spot that depicted a protagonist using Spark’s mobile payment technology across a varied range of jobs in different locations. And the telecommunications giant isn’t the only one dabbling in this space. We take a look at some of the recent moves made the major players.
A glut of goodness this week from New World, Contact, Samsung, Vodafone, Spark and Rebel Sport.
Since its launch only two years ago, Wellington-based tech start-up Showcase Workshop has grown quickly, picking up major Kiwi clients such as Spark, NZTE, Z Energy and The Warehouse, and now the company is expanding into Europe after winning a new client in Vodafone UK.
In an effort to modernise the way dairies are used to deliver promotional messages, Hypermedia Group has announced a new initiative called The Dairy Network, which will see digital advertising screens installed at the point of sale in more than 200 dairies across the country.
Spark Ventures’ subscription video on demand service Lightbox launched yesterday (here’s our take on the various streaming options) and while plenty of early adopters seemed pretty excited about that, it’s launched a campaign via Consortium to get the rest of the country to pay attention.
Spark Ventures’ Lightbox subscription video on demand service officially launched last night, and, not surprisingly, its arrival seems to have been the catalyst for a fair bit of activity in the streaming space, with TVNZ now offering online box sets of Orange is the New Black, Freeview’s Sam Irvine talking up an integrated broadcast and broadband offering, Quickflix claiming that more competition is a good thing and Sky, which recently announced another big profit increase, getting set to launch its own streaming service for non-Sky customers. So who’s got the best offer?
Jonathan Dodd believes Telecom’s rebrand to Spark was well-managed and is a good strategic decision. But he reckons the wheels have fallen off a bit when it comes to its rewards scheme, ‘Thanks’.
We rely on technology for so many things, but from time to time that reliance goes comically awry. That happened when Spark used find and replace to get rid of the mentions of Telecom on its website and, in a classic case of the law of unintended consequences, ended up creating a new word: Sparkmunications. But there are plenty more entertaining find and replace oopsies.
Industry happenings at iProspect, Spark PHD, Union Digital, Yukfoo and Ambient Group.
Jockey announced its sponsorship of the All Blacks and All Blacks Sevens teams early this year and gathered together a host of buff professional rugby players to parade about in their gruts for the black and white launch campaign. Now it’s added some colour—and given a cheeky nod to its support of the ‘boys’—for a campaign leading into the Bledisloe Cup and Rugby Championship.
Following its identity change on Friday, Spark released its first ad campaign over the weekend. Dubbed ‘never stop starting’ and created by Saatchi & Saatchi NZ, the campaign’s first 60-second TVC brings the imagery used in the teaser posters to life by featuring a protagonist walking toward and talking to the camera. As the ad progresses, the actor takes on a variety of different characters and speaks about the importance of starting anew.
With Spark livery freshly stamped over those of the corporate we used to know as Telecom, the organisation is expanding its Givealittle fundraising platform from charity to individual projects. Spark My Potential will pick out some of the projects listed on Givealittle and give them crowdfunding coaching and in some cases match pledges dollar for dollar.
As Spark’s Jason Paris said in this story, the biggest part the rebrand “is valuing our existing customer base and turning them in to advocates so they become an acquisition channel in their own right”. So before the launch of the new brand, Spark set a series of Automatic Thanking Machines loose on the nation to do just that. And while it calls it a world first, perhaps there’s some morphic resonance/independent multiple discovery at play, because just this week TD Canada Trust had a hit on its hands with its own benevolent machine.
27 years ago, Telecom was given its name. Today it’s officially giving itself a new one. As one of the country’s biggest ever rebrands rolls off the production line, we talk internal enthusiasm, teaser campaigns, customer sentiment, competitive responses and man-hole covers with Spark’s general manager of home, mobile and business Jason Paris and Spark Digital’s general manager services and solutions Jo Allison.
As Telecom poises to jettison its three-syllable moniker for the punchier Spark title, it’s worth looking at Vodafone’s 1998 rebrand that saw the company change its nationwide identity almost overnight, a move that is today considered by some as one of the best examples of rebranding in the nation’s history.
Telecom and Designworks unveiled Telecom’s new spark logo in 2009, and the move to fully rebrand as Spark—and change the orientation of the business from home phones and dumb pipes to a technology company and business enabler—has been out in the open for a few months. But now it actually has to make the change, and it’s taken the first, very symbolic step by removing the name from its HQ in Auckland.
Telecom has announced that it will emerge as Spark on 8 August. But the powers that be say the new name is just one aspect of the company’s transformation into “a confident, forward-looking technology company”. In an edited version of an article originally published in the May/June edition of NZ Marketing, Ben Fahy looks at the thinking behind one of the country’s biggest-ever—and most controversial—rebrands and the important role chief operating officer Jason Paris played in the process.
Telecom plans to find a new name for its internet TV and movie service after similarly-named Kiwi companies raised concerns about ShowmeTV. The company says it could have faced a legal challenge and a prolonged dispute wasn’t in anyone’s interest.
Monteith’s new augmented reality app designed to show consumers how they can match beer, cider and meat dishes, was part of a wider campaign that brought a hunting experience to downtown Auckland. And it’s a chance for the brand to attract new people to its category.