Spark’s new design system uses reusable components and templates in Experience Manager. This allows teams to create high-quality experiences on demand without bespoke development effort, ensuring a quick time to market. These components are built with accessibility principles in mind.
“Reusable components provide brand consistency and authoring efficiency. Then, we use insights from Analytics to see how our components and content are contributing to successful customer journeys,” says Holly Riverton, Chapter Lead - Content Design at Spark.
Increasing returns through continuous improvement
In 2023, Spark focused on maximising efforts in adopting capabilities across the Adobe Experience Cloud product suite. In collaboration with the NZ Adobe Ultimate Support team, this strategic focus yielded significant results, propelling Spark into the top 5% worldwide when benchmarked against its industry peers.
“We are hungry for improvement and maximising the return on investment for our existing Adobe products has been our central focus,” says Morris. “Through environment reviews and adoption measurements, we've successfully identified and implemented improvements, enhancing efficiency and unlocking additional capabilities. This positions us on a robust foundation as we venture into uncharted territory, paving the way for future progress and success.”
Since migrating to Campaign from its legacy platform in 2019, Spark increased automation in its marketing operations by 60%. Before the migration, creating email templates and setting up workflows required assistance from outside vendors and took more than a week. Now Spark completes these steps internally within just a few days. The improvements give the Spark team more time to strategise on new campaigns and improve how customers navigate increasingly complex journeys.
"Through a steadfast commitment to automation and personalisation, we've achieved greater commercial success and naturally evolved into a more data-driven entity,” says Travena Addenbrooke, Domain Chapter Lead for Performance Marketing and AI, at Spark. “Our teams strive daily to meet and exceed customers' needs and expectations.”
Building for tomorrow
Spark’s brand team leads the market with impactful, highly branded initiatives. These communication efforts now oversee distinct subscriptions, a capability previously unavailable. This enhances customer engagement, fosters stronger brand loyalty, and bolsters retention. For instance, customers can enlist in Spark Music's email updates for early access to concerts and entertainment. Similarly, business customers can subscribe to Spark Business Lab, unlocking tailored thought leadership content, exclusive events, and digital resources to fuel their business growth.
Applying customer insights to create simpler and more intuitive customer experiences is making a difference. The number of customers using digital journeys is up 50%, while call centre volumes are down by 20%. With customised offers seamlessly integrated across channels, and customer journey completion rates up 4%, this is proof that the data unification and use of Adobe products positively impact Spark.
“Spark’s test and learn culture, coupled with a data-driven approach, guarantees that we continuously value and optimise every customer journey,” says Matt Bain, Marketing and Data Director at Spark.
In a three-year strategy outline, Spark noted it was on track to achieve more than NZ$30M in 2023 fiscal year revenues, attributed to deep customer insights. Along with more than NZ$40M in cost efficiencies due to simpler, more intuitive customer experiences. “With a population that has grown more than 45% in the past three decades, New Zealand offers great opportunities. By embracing our personalised, data-driven approach, Spark is making good on its vision to help all of New Zealand win big in a digital world,” says Addenbrooke.
"Looking ahead, Spark’s marketing teams are actively exploring enhancements to its creative content supply chain,” says Morris. “Our commitment lies in leveraging generative AI to elevate personalisation and to scale content production seamlessly. By harnessing this technology, we aim to automate creative assets at scale based on timely and relevant data, ultimately delivering world-class customer journeys.”
