Following a round of impressive live presentations to judges last week, the Media Federation of Australia has this morning announced the finalists of the 2024 NGEN Award, comprised of seven talented individuals:
Jasmyn Dawkins, Initiative
Cassandra Deegan and Charlotte Israili, Match & Wood
Marcus Billingham-Yuen and Angelina Das, NewsCorp
Caitlin Watters and Kate Brown, UM
The NGEN Award gives media professionals with less than five years of experience the opportunity to create positive impact, and showcase their skills and develop their capabilities, by responding to a real brief to solve a charity client communication challenge.
This year’s charity is Dress for Success NSW & ACT, with a campaign objective of increasing client numbers across all of the organisation’s services. Through its signature Styling service and Career Support offerings, Dress for Success aims to help women overcome bias and discrimination when entering or re-entering the workforce.
For the first time this year, the top-scoring NGEN entrants were invited to present to a panel of judges in Sydney and Melbourne within four hours of being informed they had made it to the judging round – gaining valuable experience in presenting and responding to a tight deadline.
Melanie Aslanidis, head of NGEN, added: “As always, the NGEN Award cemented for me that the future of our industry is in great hands. The NGENers who presented on NGEN Award Day demonstrated astute strategic thinking, bold creativity, confident storytelling skills and passion for living up to our industry’s We Are The Changers purpose. We’re excited to watch you supercharge your careers through the NGEN Award and the NGEN program.”
Samantha Lee, marketing, communications and digital manager at Dress for Success NSW & ACT, added: “The presentations were truly inspiring, showcasing the creativity and strategic thinking of the NGEN finalists. The NGEN Award has highlighted our mission and amplifies our efforts to empower women to a brighter, more independent future.”
The winners will be announced at the 25th MFA Awards on 19 September at White Bay Cruise Terminal, Sydney.
Winning NGEN Award entries have gone on to become actual campaigns, such as 2022 winners Ben Breden and Olivia Coxon from Initiative, who turned their entry into a fundraising campaign for youth mental health charity batyr – in a perfect demonstration of the media agency industry’s We Are The Changers purpose – with the help of 19 media partners and $1.3 million in donated media.
