WeGather is proudly South African/Australian social network which is designed to connect like-minded users through topical conversations. 

Built for those who wish to expand their horizons and form meaningful connections, WeGather is the perfect networking tool for business, friendship or romance.

What makes WeGather unique is that it sets a time limit to each Gathering, which ensures conversations remain fresh and users are encouraged to interact before the opportunity is lost.

Sign up today and make real connections for business, social or romantic purposes.

www.gatheronline.com - Join the conversation

Fujifilm Mirrorless Cameras

The days of lugging a big, bulky camera along is gone. Fujifilm’s mirrorless cameras have changed how people approach photography. Smaller, lighter and with a distinct image quality straight from the camera, Fujifilm’s X-Series is perfect for South African photographers. If you love photography, you’ll fall in love with Fujifilm. Visit www.fujifilm.co.za for more.

Fujifilm X Series have sponsored the following categories for the 2018 awards:

• Best use of Technical Innovation
• Most Innovative use of Digital Media 
• The New Generation Medium to Large Agency of the Year Award
• Best Integrated Marketing Campaign by an Agency

Fujifilm Instax Instant Cameras

Click. Pause. Result. With Fujifilm Instax cameras you receive instant happiness, with a photo print appearing within seconds. No more memories stored away on a hard-drive somewhere, your photos are with you as soon as you take them. Fun, delightful and perfect for social media, visit www.instax.co.za for more info on the colourful Instax range.

Fujifilm have sponsored the following categories for the 2018 awards:

• Best use of Technical Innovation
• Most Innovative use of Digital Media 
• The New Generation Medium to Large Agency of the Year Award
  
• Best Integrated Marketing Campaign by an Agency

After 20 years in Digital Advertising Adam has occupied a number of leading creative positions at renowned Agencies, Aqua, Gloo@Ogilvy and now leads the creative agenda at Gorilla who recently held two "Agency of the year” titles.

Working on some of the largest brands in the country and into Africa, his brave approach can be seen in his work for BMW, KFC, AXE, LUX, Rexona, and many more. A hands on approach keeps his pencil sharpened.

Adam has won various accolades at Loeries, Smarties, DMMA Creative Circle, Bookmarks, Assegais, Cannes Lions, AD&D and called upon to Judge on respected industry bodies alike.

Dale started through-the-line agency Chillibush from a suburban garage in 1998.  The agency was ranked a top three South African agency by Finweek and the Financial Mail.  Dale sold Chillibush in 2014 at which time it was billing in excess of R100m per year.

During her time running the agency Dale was a finalist in the Ernst and Young Global Emerging Entrepreneur awards as well as in South Africa’s Most Empowered Females in Government and Business Awards.  Dale was Gauteng Businesswoman of the Year in 2010.   

She is  the author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling marketing book “From Witblits to Vuvuzelas – Marketing in the New South Africa”.

This book became recommended reading material by the Wits Business School.  The Sunday Times reviewed the book saying “There is something special about reading an uncompromisingly South African book that could take its place with the best of its genre on international bookshelves”. Andy Rice said the book has “Done the industry a service” while Jeremy Maggs commented it is “Well worth the read”.

After selling Chillibush Dale acquired the Integrated Marketing Conference (IMC), Africa’s largest.  She serves as CEO.  

Hello.

We’re MediaCom,

The Content + Connections Agency.

We believe that everything is connected. And that means a media agency has to think and operate in an entirely new way. So new that we don’t even call ourselves a media agency anymore. We call ourselves The Content + Connections Agency.

For us, “content” is the fuel for high-performing communications systems. “Connections” is how we guide the content around the system.

We call this Systems Thinking – and it’s proven to transform communications effectiveness.

As "Systems Thinkers" we are committed to delivering closed loop services to our clients and as such, digital marketing and media plays a pivotal role in our communications ecosystem. Hence we are extremely proud to once again partner with The New Generation Awards in 2018 and support the achievements within the digital space in South Africa.

Our journey with The New Generation Awards started way back in 2015 because we believe that digital marketing & media should be embraced, enhanced, and that great work in this space should be recognised.

MediaCom has sponsored the following categories for the 2018 awards:

• The New Generation Outstanding Students Award
• Blogging Excellence Award
• Mobile Marketing Excellence Award
• Best Virtual Reality Marketing Campaign Award

As in all small businesses, everyone did a bit of everything and as our clients’ needs grew so the agency grew. With the acquisition of the Wimpy BTL business, (2001 – 2005) Artifact expanded its team and expertise, finding a niche in the QSR and franchising market.  

Artifact was one of the earliest adopters of digital marketing as a fully inhouse service (2007) and Artifact Online was born, with Lindy at the helm. Along with search marketing, Artifact Online developed a social media marketing team before merging the digital company back into Artifact Advertising, 4 years later – offering clients a fully integrated service.

Artifact continued its QSR journey acquiring the Taste Holdings business (Maxi’s, Scooters, Fish and Chip co, Zebro’s) and launching Domino’s Pizza in 2014 and Starbucks in 2015.

In 2012 Artifact won the Nissan digital marketing account, followed by Infiniti and Datsun under the Nissan umbrella. In 2014 Artifact became the creative and digital agency for Supaquick, followed by Bridgestone and Firestone. 

In 2014, Lindy was asked to join the newly formed executive team at Taste Holdings as the first Divisional Marketing Exec for the franchise group. During the four years at Taste holdings, Lindy oversaw the marketing of three QSR brands and was part of the marketing team that launched global brands, Domino’s Pizza and Starbucks into South Africa.

In her absence, Artifact was appointed Social Agency for Telkom in 2016 and has further grown their expertise in digital and social strategy and media.

Lindy has resumed her position as Strategy Director at Artifact and also taken on the role of New Business Development Director.

Jared has over a decade of marketing expertise that spans digital marketing, media planning, buying, strategy, product marketing and media owner marketing across retail, finance and media globally; he has an unquenchable passion for digital, strategy and media.

Chairman of the internet marketing association of South Africa, Jared currently holds a diploma in digital marketing management, a diploma in social media marketing and a certified inbound marketing professional through Hubspot University. 

Past client experience:

Durex, Air Wick, Dettol, Disprin, E45, Finish, Gaviscon, Mortein, Nurofen, Scholl, Strepsils, Transact, Vanish, Clicks, Takealot, PNP, Dis-Chem, Dial Direct, First For Women, Hippo.co.za, King Price, Budget Insurance, Discovery and Junk Mail Publishing.

Media giants & innovative partners on TV / RADIO / PRINT / OUTDOOR/ PR / ALTERNATE / DIGITAL / LIVE-STREAMING. 

ON-SITE DIGITAL support technology, AV, SOCIAL & MOBILE media teams (FOCUSED SPECIALISTS OR TARGETED ADS) 

“LI“ ( lifestyle Influencing) AMBASSADORS with TARGETED LIFESTYLE followings – Caste by our agencies in 12 parts of SA (MODELS, ACTORS, ARTISTS, CELEBS, SALES, MC's & PRO BLOGGERS) x 12 OFFICES. 

OWN ON-SITE, targeted & FEET drawing events or OUTSIDE CO-SHOWS with bulk feet at MALLS, SHIPS STADIUMS OR OTHER, SHIPS/ PARTNERS/ AUCTIONS. 

DATABASES & BRAND PARTNERS plus TALENTS NETWORKS into direct TARGETED INTERACTIONS, so as to grow COMMUNITIES/FOLLOWINGS. 

CREATIVE CONTENT for target demographics and more COMMUNITY/FOLLOWING generating, BRAND ACTIVATION'S teams. (ESPECIALLY CASTE & COACHED)

Contact CEO - Carlo Harris - Carlo@LS24COLAB.COM

Claudelle Naidoo is an accomplished Marketing, Consumer & Media Research Specialist with 13 years of experience working across multi-million rand portfolios within organisations such as Nielsen SA, Media 24, Caxton, and Kagiso Media.  

Currently, Claudelle heads up MediaCom’s Analytics & Insights division, where she focuses on using technology and data modelling exercises to develop and execute insights that assist businesses in understanding the impact of their sales and marketing initiatives.

Claudelle considers herself to be a “changemaker” who finds a business problem, seeks a solution, and drives positive transformation for all stakeholders. As such, she was involved in the change in methodology and design of the Radio Audience Measurement Survey in South Africa; this involved sitting on the eight-man Tender Evaluation Committee and selecting a new supplier.

She has consequently developed a strong reputation in the industry for her ability to translate data into actionable insights with commercial value, which has led to her little black book of good relationships with some of South Africa’s top business leaders.

Over the last few years, Claudelle has been “giving back” and regularly lectures at Vega on topics that she is passionate about. In addition, she is also a qualified journalist who writes in her spare time for well-known sites such as Bizcommunity. 

A marketing and communications junkie with extensive experience in the sport and entertainment industry, Kieren has over 10 years’ experience in digital and PR, consulting to South Africa’s biggest corporates. 

Dani Morley has 17 years’ experience working with both local and global, traditional advertising and online innovation agencies. 

Dani’s philosophy and foundation is centred around growth of her clients as well as building, with her teams, a unique brand of customer intimacy and partnering strategically with them to deliver innovative marketing and advertising solutions. Her core skills include commercial and business development, client relationship and portfolio growth management.

She has worked across most verticals, including, but not limited to corporate, financial services, mining, petroleum, FMCG, QSR and fashion retail, tertiary educational institutions, as well as pharma and neutroceuticals.

Dani believes the role of digital needs agile delivery and an economising marketing spend, especially in the current economy. However, over and above the shared value clients expect of their agencies, the work needs to be strategically led and underpinned by creative excellence. Tapping into our clients’ purpose allows us to get closer to the point where our marketing really starts to make a difference.

Dani and her creative partner, Dylan Mclean, joined forces in June 2015, taking Connect Joe Public from a greenfield digital agency to a 48-man digital interactions agency delivering brand growth through four key areas:content, innovation, platform and experiences. 

A self-confessed digital addict, Lana Strydom has more than 18 years’ experience across digital channels, product development and marketing. 

She believes passionately that technology and innovation, when used in the right combination, can help make the world a better place. She currently leads Vodacom’s Digital Marketing team, delivering on all digital marketing requirements within the business, including paid, search, social, content and DCVM marketing, across all marketing segments. 

Lana previously headed Digital Marketing and Media for First National Bank, where she played a key role in establishing FNB as a recognised leader in digital and social marketing. She has also held positions at Absa, where she was channel manager for Mobile Portals, and at MTN SA, where she was senior manager for Portals and Interactive. Earlier in her career, she founded and managed a through-the-line advertising agency and spent some time with technology company Paracon Holdings, as divisional manager for Business Solutions.

Lana was recently voted as one of the 30 most influential women in digital in South Africa.

Stephen Paxton has over 20 years’ experience in marketing and sales, and has extensive knowledge of the digital media space.

A graphic designer by trade, Stephen worked at a number of leading publishing houses in the UK before moving to South Africa, where he joined Topco Media and progressed to the position of associate publisher on a number of well-known B2B magazines.

Stephen is a futurist, with an innovative character, who loves to embrace change and new technology. In a few short years Stephen grew the New Gen brand from the ground up to be a formidable force and sought after awards brand in South Africa. He is thorough, fair and considered in every thing he does. A spirited individual with a big heart for people.

His favourite quote in life is from entrepreneur Alan Knott-Craig jnr: “Like in business, If you find yourself on a rocket heading to the moon, hold on tight, and if you should explode along the way at least you will be among the stars.”

Templar Wales's career has always been centred around creating engaging experiences for marketing, communications and systems through design, creative thinking and strategy. 

As chief marketing officer and head of Client Experience for Airborne, a fintech start-up, Templar was responsible for the brand and identity development, marketing strategy and the full client experience. For two years prior to this, as head of Digital for Investec Group Marketing, Templar led the development and execution of the brand’s digital marketing strategy. Before that Templar was a new media designer/developer at TBWA Tool Communications (South Africa's first integrated marketing agency), founder/ECD at Blink New Media (a fiercely independent digital agency) and MD/head of Strategy at Gloo (digital agency of the year for seven years running). 

Templar has collaborated with most of the major agencies in South Africa, and worked on most of the top brands in financial services and insurance, vehicle manufacturing, medical, tourism and hospitality, apparel, FMCG, and management and training. 

With a fairly full shelf of his own Loerie, Bookmark, Midas and Assegai awards, Templar has been on various judging panels, including the Loeries, for 12 years – once as chairman. 

He has spoken at numerous conferences and lectured at Wits, Vega, AAA, UJ and MediaTech, and sat on steering committees for the Wits and UJ New Media departments. Having scraped into MENSA, Templar uses his membership just to access the free monthly geek talks.

Tara Turkington founded Flow Communications in 2005. Flow specialises in social media, web and app development, content writing and editing, graphic design, digital marketing, public relations and media training. Today, Flow has more than 150 clients, including some well-known South African and international brands and organisations, and has completed work in more than 30 countries.

In the early part of her career, Tara was a journalist and university lecturer. Tara’s dream is to continue creating meaningful jobs, and to further develop Flow’s brand globally.

Bokang Mabiletsa is a brand builder with over 13 years’ experience in the digital marketing sector, and has served both top international and local companies. He has worked on over 500 online digital projects, including work for clients such as Barloworld, Anglo American, L’Oreal, Telkom, Bidvest, Tiger Brands and many others. 

As a director at Mind Interactive for the past 10 years, Bokang has grown his strengths to include digital transformation, project management, leadership, strategy, social media marketing, and web and app development, and he has a fine eye for creative designs. 

Bokang serves on various university advisory boards in web and application development, and he is active and passionate about educating and inspiring students in the digital space.

Jeff Siepman is a multi-award winning designer with over two decades’ experience in both traditional and digital advertising. He has worked with a multitude of brands across various industries, both locally and internationally, including Absa, Barclays, Jaguar, Land Rover, Danone, Russell Hobbs, Cadbury and Telkom, to name a few.

Alex Honegger is the social media and digital marketing account manager at Cambial Communications. He is responsible for strategy and implementation of digital campaigns, as well as the management of his clients’ digital assets.

Alex has been at Cambial since 2015, after having worked as a consultant for several years. He has previous experience as the COO of an SME e-commerce and wholesale business based in Johannesburg, where he honed his digital media marketing knowledge and skills.

Having studied commerce at Wits University and Unisa, he possesses a keen interest in finance and investments, and is working towards creating a larger offering in investor relations at Cambial.

Entrepreneur. Perfectionist. High-octane creative director. Innovative strategist. Digital evangelist. Before co-founding G&G Digital, Desiree Gullan worked at the big-three creative agencies in South Africa, for a boutique agency in Singapore and had her own consultancy. Experience has taught her important lessons about creativity, innovation and how to produce work that breaks through.

Desiree is an unrelenting perfectionist with a passion for well-crafted work that resonates with people. She believes no matter how large or small the budget, real passion shines through, and results in work that stands out and adds value to clients, their brands and consumers’ lives.

A tough creative director who expects nothing but exceptional from her team, Desiree brings the same austerity to the New Generation panel of judges.

Our head judge, Gillian Findlay, has over 30 years’ experience in the financial and investment field, and also has extensive experience in a variety of financial media, having worked for both the Financial Mail and Finweek.

She was a panellist on the weekly TV programme Diagonal Street, winning the coveted Panellist of the Year Award twice. She contributed to the TV economics programmes Egoli and Gauteng, aimed at Zulu- and Sotho-speaking viewers.

She is a member of the Investment Analysts’ Society of South Africa, the Economic Society of South Africa and the Institute of Directors, and is Accredited in Public Relations by PRISA, the South African industry body. Gillian is a former chairman of the Public Relations Consultancy Chapter (PRCC), has sat on the Board of PRISA and has represented the PRCC on the Council for Communication Management.

Brett StClair, ex-Googler and now CEO at Siatik a Leading African Google Cloud partner, a Keynote Speaker on Digital Transformation and Cofounder of WTFcrowd Podcast.

With over 20 years’ experience in the global digital landscape Brett helps organisations, large and small, to understand why digital disruption is occurring and how they can be part of this movement.

Brett has over 10 years’ proven experience in working to build global successes at Admob (the world's largest mobile advertising network), Android, YouTube, Google and through cloud computing. Brett went onto rebuild Barclays Africa’s digital landscape, earning him and his team a number of awards and accolades.

Brett is an energetic, empathetic and passionate speaker, who translates the world of technology into entertaining and actionable layman's terms. One can hear Brett’s thoughts on the CliffCentral show, Futurology, at noon every Wednesday.

Astrid Ascar has 29 years’ experience in marketing, communications and media. She started her career as a journalist, presenter and radio & TV executive producer, and over the years has worked for media brands including DStv, Carte Blanche, Summit TV (now Business Day TV), The Home Channel, CNBC Africa, SABC TV, SAfm, Highveld and Hot919 fm.

In 2004 she made the transition from TV and radio to digital, working alongside MTN, Vodacom and Cell C, handset manufacturers and content providers to trial South Africa’s first ever mobile TV offering, DStv Mobile. It marked her entry into the mobile and digital landscape and laid the foundations for the rest of her career.

By 2009 Astrid was working as an independent business strategy consultant helping clients and agencies across a range of disciplines – traditional and digital marketing and communications strategies, content creation and production, key messaging and copy, site audits and optimisation including UI and UX consulting, integrated digital marketing strategies across owned, earned and paid tactics, and data analytics and insights. She also continued to MC, give talks, and facilitate workshops and conferences, and offered training in media interview skills, presentation skills, crisis comms, and a host of digital marketig and strategy topics.

Astrid is a firm believer in a brand or business never doing anything that doesn’t make strategic sense, and brings a disciplined “no jargon business principle” approach to recommendations she offers. She still likes to be ‘hands on’ involved and is equally at ease writing SEM copy and selecting keywords, as she is presenting a strategy to Boards and Excos.

In February 2018 Wunderman South Africa convinced her to join their team as Chief Strategy Officer, a role that offers her the strategic, creative thinking and operational inputs she thrives on. 

Kenneth Garvie started his digital career in 2000, thus making him one of the most experienced digital marketers currently in South Africa. Since the introduction of the internet in 1996, few individuals can match his time spent in pure digital environments. 

Kenneth holds an honours degree in marketing and with a strong technical background, his understanding of technologies and social platforms is a major advantage. It has allowed him to grow direct relationships with top industry partners, which continue to enhance his digital footprint. 

Over the course of his career he has built multiple digital companies from the ground up: Eurocom, Havas Digital (formally Euro RSCG), DDB Digital and currently with TBWA. In all instances, the divisions were started with a single person. The companies still operate to this day and operate successfully. 

Kenneth has worked internationally –The Netherlands, Sweden, France and Germany, which allowed him to build a skill set that is both valuable for the agency and the clients within the stable. 

He has won awards both locally and internationally and has worked on brands in various sectors and industries. With a wide range and understanding of digital eco-systems, Kenneth is able to build and streamline business structures producing more than vanity metrics for brands. Now a social media expert, Kenneth is leading the forefront of social media innovation, changing the conception of how social media works for a business and turns into real business results. Being a business owner himself he has become invaluable to the awards, bringing a sense of business results over "likes" and other vanity metrics.

He believes that technology provides the power to shape not only the industry but the world and this, along with his vast experience,puts him at the forefront of digital innovation.

Prakash Patel is a seasoned tradigitalist – one whose expertise spans both the traditional marketing and digital realms – with over 20 years’ experience. Previously CEO of Prezence and head of digital for FCB SA, he is a strategist in a suit, an innovator, a creative in disguise and a firm believer that all things are possible, using technology as the enabler and creative as the ideator.

He is an active thought leadership writer, speaker and judge for both local and international awards (including SXSW and Webby).