Founded in 2012, the New Generation Social & Digital Media Awards are the largest celebrated digital media awards in the country. Not only do we honour the South African creative agency teams for their innovative use of social and digital media, and cutting-edge use of online media and tools, we also acknowledge corporate companies and their in-house marketing teams from across our region for their work on campaigns that help promote their organisations and brands in ground-breaking ways.
This year's virtual awards show will be streamed at the beginning of September, across a number of partner channels.
Corporate companies, brands and individuals who do not use a media agency and who wish to enter these awards can do so directly. There's over 40 categories to choose from!
One of our key areas is to recognise individual talent from within agencies, corporates and learning institutes in South Africa; a number of newly created categories shine a light on some of the country’s brightest and most promising millennial marketers – talent that will be at the forefront of future communications, media and digital technologies.
The New Generation Awards offers an array of exciting categories best suited to recognising today’s leading marketers. Now in our eighth successive year, we will continue to recognise new generations of award-winning talent for years to come.
The awards celebrate ingenuity, with a specific focus on results and insight-based success, which makes the awards unique among those largely dominated by equal parts emotion and ideation. “The awards continually evolve to include new trends in social and digital media, new industry technology and platforms, as well as international trends making their way into South Africa,” says Stephen Paxton, managing director of the New Generation Social & Digital Media Awards.
There is a distinctly “mathematical” approach to the judging – a fairer adjudication process sees each entry marked by at least four judges, measuring them against criteria such as innovation, creativity, strategy, content, results and sales. Judges do not adjudicate any categories into which their agencies have entered.
“Although there will always be an element of emotion involved, the judging criteria ensures that it is primarily about the results. A meaningful digital marketing experience is a smart idea executed brilliantly, with the facts to back it up – that’s how the judges will be scrutinising each campaign,” says Paxton, who maintains the judges still value ingenuity and creative brilliance as key factors in the judging process.
Our ongoing partnership's with some of SA's leading brands and media partners, ensure that these awards not only trend nationally but also on a global scale. The awards gala ceremony is streamed live on the night and generates millions of engagement across our various social and digital platforms. Great for all our winners and key sponsors!