Spark is New Zealand’s biggest broadband provider. Its purpose is to build a digital future with everyone in mind.

Unfortunately, most of the internet still runs on two gender data points - male and female. Making the online experience for trans and non-binary people demeaning and potentially risky, creating inaccuracies in the data and experiences they were in, opening themselves up to microaggressions, and forcing them misrepresent themselves.

Spark has a long standing relationship with New Zealand’s rainbow communities and felt compelled to help more of them feel seen online. Beyond Binary Code did that through a single piece of code that could be added to any website.

The campaign intersects 3 key ambitions of Spark:

1. Help New Zealanders have a better relationship with their data.

2. Improve the sophistication of NZ businesses’ datascapes.

3. Lift digital inequities for minority communities.

Beyond Binary Code rewrites the internet to see more than two genders. Co-created with rainbow mental health organisations and trans and non-binary communities, it’s a single piece of code that makes website data forms gender inclusive.

Four key elements are:

1. A code builder tool. Helps businesses collect gender data and customise code to suit their needs.

2. Downloadable HTML code. Added to any website to instantly update all gender-related fields, pronouns, prefixes etc.

3. A pitch pack, to help users get wider business buy-in with implementing the code, understanding data privacy obligations and/or the ripple effect gender data points have on an entire business.

4. Communications that highlight the scale and impact of the problem, to drive change. Non-binary community members are the star of the idea. Leading the film, sharing stories, giving advice and promoting the idea.

There was no data that enabled us to understand the size of the problem, which was a problem. We learnt about it through focus groups with non-binary and trans communities as well as NZ businesses across 6 industries.

Many movements happen online. So, social media became a primary outlet to start a conversation. Audience targeting allowed us to tailor our communications, ensuring we could first gather data on how a largely unknown problem impacts each set.

To create change we had 3 audience sets:

1. Trans, non-binary and rainbow communities. To affect real change, the community members were co-creators, advisors, and advocates.

2. Changemakers in business. We worked with NZ businesses to design tools to help get buy-in with management/stakeholders, roadmapping change and implementing it.

3. Progressive apathetics. Talking about a problem the rest of the nation probably hadn’t thought about.

Spark created Beyond Binary Code - a single piece of code that can be added to any website, instantly updating gender forms and fields to be inclusive. The code helps businesses truly understand the trans and non binary community by making them visible for the first time through data.

An educational toolkit also ensured businesses could implement change in their physical workspaces.

By publishing the code, Spark encouraged digital equity at an enterprise level, influencing big data systems to be inclusive and in time, build an internet with richer, more sophisticated datascapes that represent everyone.

The code was launched & introduced with an integrated campaign. It included a hero brand film, social content, press, and more. Each element pointed to a bespoke digital microsite that housed the code itself and anchored the campaign.

Beyond Binary Code was shared directly with 65,000 New Zealand businesses.

Amongst the companies to implement the code was New Zealand’s biggest digital news website.

Salesforce, a global cloud computing company, are implementing & upgrading their customer management tools with our code - which are used by millions of businesses around the world.

The code has been written to work in HTML and Java, as well as Wix, SquareSpace, WordPress and other direct-to-market website building software.

Beyond Binary Code is designed to be an enduring resource for businesses – an open source tool and education platform that will continue to drive change for years to come.