One NZ brings back Matter of Faith 25 years later
One NZ revives a 2001 Warriors anthem with Coterie, using sponsor history, music and fan identity as the campaign's cultural core.
There is a particular kind of loyalty in sport that survives bad seasons, ugly losses and years when belief feels like part of the job. For Warriors supporters, that persistence has become part of the club's identity, which makes an old anthem a surprisingly natural piece of material to bring back.
One New Zealand is leaning into that shared memory with a new version of "Matter of Faith," a song first associated with the Vodafone-era Warriors in 2001. The brand outlined the revival in its newsroom post, pairing a new Coterie recording with a film shot at Go Media Stadium that puts supporters, former and current Warriors figures, old jerseys and club memorabilia inside the story.
Table of contents
Jump to each section:
- Why Matter of Faith still works as a fan story
- How One NZ turns sponsorship history into culture
- Why Coterie fits the revival
- What marketers should know about long-running sports fandom
Why Matter of Faith still works as a fan story
The creative idea is simple because the fan truth is simple. Supporting a team is rarely only about the scoreboard. It is also about the people you watch with, the songs you remember, the shirts you keep and the rituals that make one season feel connected to the next.
The new film uses those signals rather than inventing a fresh mythology around the club. Coterie moves through the tunnels, concourses and stands of Go Media Stadium with supporters before the group gathers on the pitch. Vintage jerseys and memorabilia sit beside people from the Warriors' past and present, including the first Warriors jersey presented at the club's original 1995 launch.
That detail matters because nostalgia works better when people can recognize themselves inside it. The campaign is not asking supporters to admire an archive from a distance. It is pulling an old piece of club culture into a current setting and surrounding it with the people who keep the culture alive.
Susannah Winger, One NZ's Head of Brand Experience, put the connection plainly: "Matter of Faith is part of that history, but the idea behind it feels just as true today."
https://www.facebook.com/Coterietheband/videos/behind-the-lens-with-the-one-nz-warriors-big-day-bigger-energy/1067935736113467
How One NZ turns sponsorship history into culture
Many sponsorships are designed to be noticed in the present. Logos sit on jerseys, stadium signage and broadcast backdrops, while the partnership itself can feel separate from the stories supporters tell about the team.
One NZ has a different asset here: time. The Warriors say the relationship began in 1999 under Vodafone NZ and has been extended through the end of the 2031 NRL season. The club describes it as the longest-running naming-rights sponsorship in New Zealand professional sport.
1999 to 2031 is the span of the Warriors' naming-rights relationship with Vodafone NZ and One NZ under the current extension, according to One NZ Warriors.
That longevity changes what the sponsor can credibly do. A newer partner could borrow the aesthetics of an old Warriors moment, but One NZ can point to a campaign artifact that came from its own relationship with the club. "Matter of Faith" is not just retro material. It is evidence that the sponsor was already present in an earlier chapter of the fandom.
This is where the work moves beyond anniversary marketing. The brand is using its history as creative material, then refreshing it through a present-day band, current supporters and a stadium film. Instead of saying "we have been here for years," the campaign gives people something from those years to hear and see again.
There is also restraint in that approach. The story does not need to claim that a long sponsorship automatically creates affection. It shows the relationship through recognizable cultural residue: an old song, old jerseys, familiar club faces and a new crowd carrying the same belief forward.
Why Coterie fits the revival
The choice of Coterie helps the campaign avoid feeling like a museum piece. The four Māori brothers were born in New Zealand and built a strong following across Aotearoa and Australia. Sony Music New Zealand says their track "Cool It Down" reached the top of the Radioscope NZ airplay chart and that the band later toured New Zealand stadiums with Six60.
That gives the remake a useful balance. The song belongs to an older Warriors era, but the performers connect it to a more current music audience. Coterie does not need to imitate the original moment exactly for the revival to make sense. Their role is to carry the emotional idea into a new version that can sit naturally beside today's club culture.
For marketers, this is a more interesting use of talent than adding a famous face after the campaign idea is already complete. The band is part of the translation layer. They help an older brand asset feel contemporary without removing the history that gives it meaning.
That distinction is important in nostalgia-led work. A campaign can become hollow when the modern collaborator overwhelms the thing people actually remember. Here, the underlying fan ritual remains central: showing up, wearing the colours and keeping faith with the team. The artist refreshes the expression rather than replacing the memory.
What marketers should know about long-running sports fandom
The strongest part of the One NZ campaign is not that it found an old song. It is that the brand had enough shared history with the Warriors for the song to still belong to both the sponsorship and the fan story.
1. Longevity only matters when it leaves cultural traces.
A sponsorship anniversary is an internal milestone until supporters can connect it to something they remember. Songs, shirts, venues, rituals and repeated moments are more useful than a number on a partnership timeline because they give people something tangible to recognize.
2. Nostalgia needs a present-day role.
Bringing back old creative work is not enough. The new version has to answer why this memory belongs in the current culture. Coterie, the stadium setting and current supporters give the anthem somewhere to live now rather than treating it as a historical replay.
3. The fan should remain bigger than the sponsor.
The campaign works because One NZ's relationship with the Warriors is the context, not the only subject. The film is populated by supporters, club history and shared symbols. That lets the brand participate in the fandom without pretending it created the fandom.
4. A long partnership can become an editorial asset.
Brands often think about sponsorship rights in terms of media inventory and visibility. Over time, a partnership can also accumulate stories, creative artifacts and cultural references that become useful material for new work. The value comes from knowing which parts still mean something to the audience.
The wider lesson is that sports fandom gives brands access to memory, but not ownership of it. Supporters decide which chants, jerseys, songs and moments become meaningful enough to survive.
One NZ has an unusually long relationship with the Warriors, so it can reopen a piece of that history without looking like it arrived after the fact. For other brands, the useful question is not whether they can copy the nostalgia tactic. It is whether their own partnership has created anything people would actually want to remember.
