2025 NGEN Award winner Ashley Hill.
Entering the NGEN Award is more than a competition – it’s a career accelerator. Past winners Ashley Hill and Kate O’Loughlin explain why it’s worth entering and share their tops tips for a winning entry.
Now in its 16th year, The NGEN Award is one of the most anticipated categories of the MFA Awards for media professionals with less than five years’ experience. More than just a competition, it’s a career-defining opportunity to sharpen strategic thinking, tackle a live client brief and gain exposure to senior industry leaders.
This year’s brief comes from UnLtd charity partner Down the Track, which supports at-risk young people in regional NSW. Two past winners share why every eligible NGENer should enter – and their top tips for creating a standout entry.
Ashley Hill, Data & AI Manager, Match & Wood – 2025 NGEN Award winner
At Match & Wood, entering the NGEN Award is essentially compulsory for anyone who qualifies. That’s because it’s one of the best initiatives for emerging talent.
It pushes you to think strategically, solve real business problems, present build a compelling case for your ideas, present with confidence, and gain exposure to senior leaders. Those are skills that stay with you long after the competition ends.
I’ve seen the growth firsthand. Every Match & Wood NGENer who has entered coming back sharper, more strategic and more confident. I experienced the same myself.
In a world where AI has raised the baseline for average work, deep thinking and specialised knowledge matter more than ever. The NGEN Award helps you develop both.
And if you make make the shortlist, you’ll pitch your thinking to some of the industry’s most senior leaders – a rare opportunity early in your career.
Put simply, if you’re less than five years into the industry, the NGEN Award is one opportunity you shouldn’t miss.
Here are my tips for putting together a strong entry:
1. Start early
Winning sometimes just comes down to who puts more time in.
2. Find the root cause, not just the barrier
Work out what the real barrier in the brief is, then ask why it exists. Trying to understand the problem properly helped me craft an entry with a unique way in, and a big impact.
3. Show the numbers behind the solution
Measurement matters. Back of the napkin math is fine, but you must show the numbers behind the solution so judges can rationalise the impact.
The only thing left now is to get started on your entry. Good luck!
Kate O’Loughlin, Group Strategy Director, Wavemaker – 2023 NGEN Award winner with Summer Treseder
As the protagonist in the video game Far Cry 3 once so eloquently put it, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
The NGEN Award is the perfect circuit breaker for any potential workplace insanity, representing an opportunity to sink your teeth into a brief and embrace divergent thinking to a solve a problem you might otherwise not often come across.
Summer Treseder and I were lucky enough to take home a win in 2023. Through the competition, we were able to home in on our strategy and creative ideation skills – something that has since served us both into other competitions and our day-to-day work. Coupled with the exposure the award offers you within the industry and the opportunity to grow your personal brand.
While ‘big ideas’ might not be for everyone, this is just one part of the process. You’ll lean into bits of anthropology to figure out the human insight, use your own inner author to come up with the story of the deck, and potentially embrace a TV presenter’s skillset should you shortlist and get to present on NGEN Award Day. This award really is a multifaceted opportunity for learning.
To help guide you on your journey, here’s our top three tips for pulling an entry together:
1. The best insight must be a truth, not an observation
While a genuine human insight can be the hardest part of the whole process, the simplicity of this statement is what will unlock the “aha” moment for any judge reading your submission. It’s the key to making your idea so obvious that there’s no room for doubt. By repeatedly asking yourself “why” you can push what might be an observation into an insight, as you’re able to unlock the reasoning behind a behaviour.
2. Push your idea as much as you can
This is a competition that embraces creative, bold and ambitious media ideas. There is no worse feeling than submitting an entry that you feel you could have pushed harder. It is up to you and your partner to relentlessly question your idea, challenging as to whether it is the most unique, on-brief and on-insight answer. AI can be your friend, but simply asking an LLM to push an idea will not be enough. This requires real human brain power.
3. Trust your partner’s skillsets
Creatives have figured this out best – not everyone is an art director, and not everyone is a copywriter. Within your team, allocate tasks according to your individual skills. If someone is a brilliant mock maker or deck designer, then have trust and allow them to sprint at those jobs. Similarly, if one of you is a brilliantly pithy writer, that’s who should finesse the story.
These competitions can often feel like a time-sink add on to your day-to-day, but hopefully this has been proof of the opportunity that lies within them. An opportunity to learn, grow and advance to the next level of your career – or at the very least, to break up your daily routine.
Go forth and conquer!
NGEN Award entries close July 28. Shortlisted teams will be invited to NGEN Award Day on 19 August, to pitch live to MFA Board directors and senior industry leaders.
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