Spark Awards 2025 Hong Kong winners revealed

TVB and MTR* Advertising, JCDecaux Transport have won big at the 12th edition of MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's Spark Awards Hong Kong 2025, held at Hotel ICON on 5 September.

TVB was crowned Media of the Year, while MTR* Advertising, JCDecaux Transport's campaign “MTR* advertising – Taobao Double 11 Shopping Festival” were crowned Media Campaign of the Year.

Designed to celebrate exceptional creativity, innovation, and storytelling, the awards brought together media professionals to showcase their best work, achievements, and innovations to the broader industry. All submissions were thoroughly evaluated by an independent panel of industry experts and senior marketers.

See the full list of winners here. 

See the full jury here.

Standing out from the crowd and impressing the jury with innovative solutions and team results was TVB, which took home a total of 11 trophies, including four golds, five silvers, and two bronzes. Its thought-provoking campaigns included the “NRC Campaign”, “HSBC 160th Anniversary”, and “PayMe CNY”, created in partnership with OMG for HSBC, as well as “Le Grand Tour de Osaka”, done in partnership with dentsu Hong Kong for Standard Chartered Bank.

The “Le Grand Tour de Osaka” campaign created for Standard Chartered Bank impressed the judges the most among the campaigns produced by TVB. Running from December 2023 to November 2024, the campaign aimed to establish the bank as the ultimate travel companion and to inspire affluent and high-net-worth (HNW) travellers to embrace its offerings.

The campaign was backed by Standard Chartered’s "Hong Kong affluent travel study 2024," which revealed that these audiences plan an average of eight trips annually and are willing to invest HK$150,000 per long-haul journey, prioritising premium experiences such as airport lounge access and priority check-in.

To effectively reach the target audience, the campaign collaborated with Cathay Pacific to offer two exclusive chartered flights for over 400 affluent customers of Standard Chartered, providing unforgettable and personalised journeys to Taipei and Osaka. 

The campaign also partnered with TVB to create an exclusive TV programme titled "Grand 住去台北／大阪" (Le Grand Tour de Taipei/ Osaka), featuring celebrities such as Priscilla Wong and Samantha Ko. Going beyond digital banners and 30-second TV commercials, the collaboration resulted in a 120-minute travel documentary that offered an immersive, firsthand experience, transcending traditional storytelling. This documentary successfully reached audiences in the Greater Bay Area as well.

Additionally, a multi-dimensional media event was launched to resonate across various media channels and generations.

Meanwhile, MTR* advertising, JCDecaux Transport’s “MTR* advertising – Taobao Double 11 Shopping Festival” campaign won the Media Campaign of the Year, taking home two golds, three silvers, and one bronze. 

Running from October to December 2024, the campaign launched for Taobao aimed to connect with Hong Kong customers and enhance their shopping experience by promoting a limited-time offer of free shipping to Hong Kong for orders over RMB$99.

Strategically made use of MTR* advertising, JCDecaux Transport eco system, Taobao rolled out a mega-scale online-to-offline (O2O) advertising campaign, seamlessly integrated offline and online promotions to promote “Hong Kong Free Shipping Campaign”, which embraced Hong Kong customers with a holistic O2O journey.

To reach a wide audience, MTR was selected as the platform to promote Taobao’s offer of free shipping to Hong Kong, as it serves an average of 5.2 million passengers daily. Spanning up to 59 MTR stations, the campaign strategically combined zone dominations with digital advertising networks to spotlight this limited-time offer. Exclusive discount codes were available at 20 designated MTR stations.

Additionally, MTR is the first metro system in Asia to offer programmatic digital out-of-home (pDOOH) advertising. By leveraging this pDOOH solution, Taobao effectively delivered relevant messages to the right target audience at the right place and time. 

To capture passengers’ eyeballs and cultivate their interest, Taobao partnered with MTR* advertising, JCDecaux Transport to roll out an O2O campaign with eye-catching Taobao characters and playful slogans that incorporated distinctive aspects or landmark elements of Hong Kong. The advertising slogans evoked the lively shopping mood of “Double 11 Shopping Festival” with examples such as 「夾單不求人，黃大仙包郵」 at Wong Tai Sin Station, and「落坊定落老蘭，包郵直落一齊玩」at Central Station.

Taobao placed various promotional code stickers at 20 designated MTR stations. Passengers could scan the QR codes on these stickers to connect to or download the Taobao app. By entering the promotional code, users could enjoy exclusive offers. 

MTR* advertising, JCDecaux Transport also recruited influencers to snap at the MTR stations and promoted through Facebook, Instagram and Xiaohongshu. The campaign also launched a best photo-taking campaign on social media to further engage with citizens. The campaign was followed with 360-degree marketing promotions, including press release, EDM, viral videos and various social media promotions.

This year, the competition was incredibly tight with over 260 entries across 30 categories and a total of 97 trophies awarded to the leading media entities across the regions at the ceremony.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE would like to thank all our 20 esteemed panel of judges for their time in judging the entries. Congratulations to all our winners for an excellent night! See you again next year!

MTR* advertising refers to the exclusive advertising business managed by JCDecaux Transport, which includes the Island Line, South Island Line, Tsuen Wan Line, Kwun Tong Line, Tung Chung Line, Tseung Kwan O Line, Disneyland Resort Line, and the Airport Express. 

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