IMAA reveals finalists for second annual ‘Pitch-Chella’ event recognising emerging indie talent

The Independent Media Agencies of Australia (IMAA), the national industry body representing independent media agencies, today announced eight finalists for its 2025 ‘Pitch-Chella’ program.

Now in its second year, the highly successful Pitch-Chella initiative gives emerging indie agency professionals the opportunity to collaborate, innovate and strategise, as they sharpen their pitching skills. This year’s event is proudly sponsored by Audience360 and supported by Meta, News Corp Australia and Pinterest.

This year, eight finalists have been selected from the 21 teams that entered the competition, representing 18 IMAA member agencies.

The finalists were chosen based on the strength of their written pitches, which involved developing a media campaign brief for Mission Australia. Teams prepared a pitch for the charity’s paid and earned media, showcasing innovative solutions to amplify the charity brand and its work in helping to solve Australia’s homelessness crisis.

The 2025 finalists are:

·       Advertising Associates (Gabriella Asfaw, Lucy Wallace, Laura McGinley, Chloe Swanell)
·       Alpha Digital (Lucy Nioa, Lauren Hunter, Jess O’Connor, Giorgia Griffith)
·       Assembled Media (Sophie Morris, Samantha Keah and Chelsea Schultz)
·       Bang Digital (Sam Daisley, Ari Silberstein, Heidi Leung and Maddison Farmer)
·       Hatched (Alex Curry, Yasemin Akpinar and Samantha Coates)
·       tfm.digital (Elsie Mollison, Mitchell Falcke, Reuben Hill and Mason Tong)
·       The Media Store (Lucy Henderson, Adriana Catanese, May Ng and Emma Davis)
·       The Noisy Beast (Darcy Burke, Coco Walsh and Olivia Adams)

The written pitches were reviewed by a panel of senior marketing professionals, 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.

The finalists will now present their pitches to the judging panel, along with Mission Australia’s National Marketing Manager, Nicole Moore.

IMAA Leadership Team Member and Hatched Chairman, Mike Wilson, says: “We were overwhelmed with the exceptional quality of this year’s submissions. All the teams showed a strong understanding of the brief and the important work of Mission Australia, and their pitches demonstrated deep insights into Australia’s homelessness plight.

“I want to extend my sincere congratulations to all the finalists – we were impressed with the creative thinking, strategy and concepts executed in the pitches; it represents the depth of talent among our up-and-coming industry professionals. If this is the calibre of work our budding agency professionals bring to the table, I’m confident we are leaving the future of the indie media agency sector in good hands.”

Virtual pitches will be presented to the panel on July 2, before the winners are announced at an award ceremony at Melbourne’s Bells Hotel on July 17.

The 2025 Pitch-Chella initiative is 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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