Digies 2023: Adani Digital Labs, White Rivers Media among the big winners

Schbang, SoCheers and HiveMinds were the other notable winners. The seventh edition of Digies drew nearly 600 entries from over 130 agencies and marketers.

The winners at the seventh edition of Digies Digital Awards 2023, organised by afaqs!, were recently feted at a ceremony. The event was held in a jam-packed hall in Holiday Inn, Andheri, Mumbai, and the entries were classified into six super categories and 45 categories. (The super categories were content, influencer marketing, social media, video, digital and design.)

Launched in 2014, Digies is an annual afaqs! initiative that aims to celebrate creative marketing communication initiatives by agencies, brands, production houses, design studios, creative studios and content creators. These range from exceptional use of social media to integrating multiple platforms, from the use of hashtags to long-form video, and more.

White Rivers Media claimed the Agency of the Year title by winning seven gold, five silver and one bronze metals, while Adani Digital Labs bagged the Brand of the Year award, with two gold, four silvers and four bronze metals. Adani Digital Labs handles the digital aspect of the entire Adani Group, including realty, airports, electricity, online and the Adani Foundation.

HiveMinds grabbed nine metals, including three gold, five silver and a bronze for its work across digital, influencer marketing and social media categories. Schbang won a total of nine metals, including four gold, four silver and a bronze for its work in content, design, social media, digital and influencer marketing. SoCheers took home nine metals, including four gold, four silver and a bronze across nearly all the super categories, barring video and design.

Among brands, Network18 won four metals, including two gold, for its work in best content marketing campaign and best online integrated marketing categories.

Here are the top winners in the categories with the highest number of entries:

Best use of social media: White River Media won the top spot for its promotion of 'Shark Tank' Season 1

Best brand awareness campaign: 'Shark Tank' once more fetched White River the gold metal here

Best long form video (over 30 seconds): Bang In The Middle won top honours for its work on PhonePe

Speaking on the occasion, Sreekant Khandekar, co-founder and CEO of afaqs!, said, "With nearly 600 entries from over 150 agencies, brand marketers, production houses and others, this is the highest participation we have ever had. It makes Digies one of the most significant digital awards in India."

He added that to keep the awards relevant, the afaqs! events team is constantly dropping categories and introducing new ones that are more appropriate. The average juror rating for all entries (not just the winners) at Digies was 5.8 out of 10, which showed that the quality of participation was fairly high, he said. He also thanked the jury for its time.

The entries were judged by a 26-member jury of well known names from the advertising, media and marketing worlds: Ahmed Aftab Naqvi (GoZoop); Ajay Gupte (Wavemaker); Amar Singh (Lowe Lintas); Ankit Desai (Marico); Ashwini Deshpande (Elephant Design); Dheeraj Kummar (Motivator-GroupM); Garima Khandelwal (Mullen Lintas); Gautam Bhirani (Eyetalk Media Ventures); Harish Iyer (Interactive Avenues); Harshita Singh (Times Prime); Kartik Mahadev (Zee Entertainment); Kiran Giradkar (Nilon's); Manu Prasad (Scripbox); Mayuri Nikumbh (Conran Design Group); Mihir Karkare (Mirum); Pawan Sarda (Wingreens); Piali Dasgupta (Columbia Pacific Communities); Pratik Gupta (Zoo Media); Ronita Mukerjee (Landor & Fitch); Shekhar Badve (Lokus Design); Shradha Agarwal (Grapes); Shrenik Gandhi (White Rivers Media); Suman Varma (Hamdard); Varsha Ojha (Shemaroo); Vikram Pandey (Leo Burnett) and Vishal Chinchankar (Madison World).

The jury rated the entries on a scale of 1-10. Each entry was submitted for review to between five and seven jurors.

Click here to view the Winners List.