Alpha Digital takes Gold in the second annual IMAA 2025 Pitch-Chella Competition

Up-and-coming talent from independent media agencies Alpha Digital, Assembled Media and Bang Digital have today been announced as the winners of the Independent Media Agencies of Australia’s (IMAA) hotly contested 2025 Pitch-Chella program.

Alpha Digital’s Lucy Nioa, Lauren Hunter, Giorgia Griffith and Jess O’Connor won the Gold medal for Pitch-Chella, with Assembled Media’s Chelsea Schultz, Samantha Keah and Sophie Morris winning Silver, and Bang Digital’s Sam Daisley, Ari Silberstein, Heidi Leung and Maddison Farmer taking the Bronze.

The winning teams were announced at a special award ceremony at Melbourne’s Bells Hotel last night (July 17), which was attended by participants from the 21 competing teams, along with IMAA members and partners.

All three teams prepared comprehensive, creative briefs for the competition’s chosen charity, Mission Australia, pitching unique campaigns to amplify its work and support fundraising, with Alpha Digital the stand-out submission.

Alpha Digital prepared a pitch focusing on a “house of cards” theme and the notion that the media holds the trump card to shaping public perception around homelessness. Their “House of Cards” campaign, to be executed across immersive public activations and bold creative using out-of-home, social and digital channels, focused on emotional marketing to drive action, building a human connection to reframe homelessness as a shared vulnerability, not a distant issue.

Assembled Media prepared a campaign centred on the “Unhidden Mission”, addressing Australia’s lack of awareness around the extent of the national homelessness crisis. The campaign was designed to disrupt the every-day media environment by embedding seemingly typical content where you don’t expect to see traditional charity messaging – such as digital and social media, high-impact free-to-air TV, and out-of-home advertising. It proposed a partnership with influencers The Inspired Unemployed, using humour to lower defences, along with collaborations with podcast talent to share stories of hidden homelessness. Creative was developed using “day-in-the-life” imagery to show individuals whose routines seem similar – until it’s revealed one is experiencing homelessness. The campaign was also supported with long-from content to subtly expose signs of housing insecurity.

Bang Digital pitched “The One Event Project 2026”- the idea of one act making a difference. The campaign focused on building empathy without exploiting vulnerability, by showing every-day Australians that they’re “one event away” from needing help, and equally, “one act away” from being someone’s lifeline. Their strategy included an always-on campaign across Meta, Google, TikTok and organic social, using the hash tags #oneevent or #oneact to show how people have helped others experiencing homelessness, and was supported by a disruption phase, using augmented reality filters and Uber journey ads, and amplification across Optus and Allianz Stadium partnerships on digital billboards and out-of-home advertising.

The highly successful Pitch-Chella program gives up-and-coming indie media agency professionals the opportunity to collaborate and innovate as they hone their pitching skills. This year’s event was proudly sponsored by Audience360 and supported by Meta, News Australia and Pinterest.

Twenty-one teams, representing 18 IMAA member agencies, competed in the 2025 competition, each preparing pitches for a media campaign brief for Mission Australia.

Eight finalists were selected to present their pitches to a judging panel of Australian marketing experts, including gold sponsor Audience360’s Managing Director, Jenny Parkes, TrinityP3 Business Director and Global Media Lead, Steven Wright, Tumbleturn Marketing Advisory Managing Partner, Daniel Johns, Orand Founder, Adam Hickey, and Sparrow’s Nest Consulting’s Greg Graham, along with Mission Australia’s National Marketing Manager, Nicole Moore.

IMAA Leadership Team member and Hatched Chairman, Mike Wilson, says: “We are excited to announce the winners of this year’s Pitch-Chella initiative. The judging panel had an incredibly difficult task in selecting this year’s winners – all our finalists prepared pitches that demonstrated a depth of thinking, creativity and strategy that was well beyond their years.

“I’d like to congratulate the teams from Alpha Digital, Assembled Media and Bang Digital – their pitches were detailed, innovative, and well-developed – all three teams had really thought about the brief and the important work of Mission Australia and how they could use the full suite of modern media tools to amplify its offering.

“The second annual Pitch-Chella program has again demonstrated the importance of nurturing young media agency talent and I look forward to seeing what all our winners and finalists do next.”

Says Mission Australia National Marketing Manager, Nicole Moore: “We were delighted to have been the client brief for Pitch-Chella this year. Many finalists were surprised as they learnt about the scale of Australia’s hidden homelessness crisis and that of the 122,000 people homeless in Australia each night, only 6% are rough sleeping.

“The standard of the entries was excellent – so many strategically thoughtful and creative ideas for how to amplify our work. The ideas will definitely be considered as part of our future campaign planning.”

The 2025 Pitch-Chella initiative was spearheaded by a steering committee of independent agency leaders, including Mike Wilson (Hatched), Lisa Blackshaw (Co.Gency) and Taylor Fielding (tfm.digital), along with the IMAA team.

For more information, visit: https://theimaa.com.au/pitch-chella/

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