afaqs! Digipub Awards 2023: The Quint and News9 Plus jointly dominated the evening

Shekhar Gupta, founder & editor-in-chief of The Print is voted afaqs! Digipub Business Leader of the Year.

The digital publishing industry came together for a night of celebration and recognition in New Delhi at the fourth edition of Digipub Awards took centre stage. Organised by afaqs!, the awards are a part of Digipub World, which is the first and only business event focused exclusively on web publishing. 

The 2023 edition of Digipub Awards had 25 categories under six super categories namely: advertising, business, content, design, innovation and technology.

During the course of the evening, a total of 40 metals were given away, made up of 12 Gold, 15 Silver and 13 Bronze. The evening was characterised by an air of excitement and anticipation as the audience eagerly awaited the announcement of the winners across various categories. 

The Quint soared high with a total of 15 metals - three Gold, nine Silver and three Bronze. Being the second on the list of the highest metal acquirers, News9 Plus (TV9 Network) took home a total of 10 metals made up of five Gold, three Silver and two Bronze. 

Other notable winners were Hindustan Times, Jagran New Media, JioSaavn, Newslaundry, Pinkvilla Media, EssentiallySports and WebDunia.

Categories with the highest number of entries, as also the winners therein, are listed below:

Best Brand Partnership: Vice News won the top spot for its five-episode series “Vice X Grey Goose Vive Le Voyage” featuring Kayaan Shiraz Contractor 

Best Video Series: The Quint won Gold for its campaign “India's Girls Out of School” which brought stories of girls from across the country who were forced to discontinue education due to COVID-19. 

Best Section: Youth Ki Awaaz won the top spot for its Best Section - Environment and Climate.

Speaking on the occasion, Sreekant Khandekar, co-founder and CEO of afaqs!, said,“The nature and extent of creativity and innovation in every aspect is not fully appreciated. Digipub Awards try to correct that in a small way.”

The entries were judged by a 10-member jury of well-known names from the world of advertising, media and marketing, including Azmat Habibulla (South Indian Bank); Bharatesh Salian (Kinnect); Deepali Saini (Think Design - A Havas Company); Gaurav Mehta (Noise); Gurbaksh Singh (Dentsu Creative India); Harsh Shah (Wunderman Thompson South Asia); Jai Lala (Zenith - The ROI Agency); Pravin Sutar (Leo Burnett Orchard); Satish Krishnamurthy (Interbrand) and Vijay Jung Thapa (ABP Network).

The jury rated the entries on a 1-10 scale. Each entry was submitted for review to between five and seven jurors. The average jury rating of all the entries (not just the winners) was 5.6/10, which showed that the overall standard of entries was high. An entry had to score a minimum of five points to qualify for a Bronze, six points for a Silver and seven points for a Gold.

You can check the complete list of winners here. 

This year, the title of 'afaqs! Business Leader of the Year’ was introduced to honour executives who have brought the news revolution online to this juncture.

afaqs! invited nominations from its readers and shortlisted eight super achievers whose names and profiles were forwarded to a Special Jury consisting of marketers and agency heads.

In a closely contested race, the Special Jury voted for Shekhar Gupta, the founder and editor-in-chief of The Print, as Business Leader of the Year. Though established in only 2017, The Print has already become an influential voice with its commentary on Indian current affairs.

The Special Jurors to vote for Business Leader of the Year were: Shashank Srivastava (Maruti Suzuki); Ajay Dang (Ultratech - Aditya Birla Group); Prasad Shejale (LS Digital); Aditi Mishra (Lodestar UM); Anita Nayyar (Patanjali) and Monaz Todywalla (PHD India).

Event partners include MGID, YuktaMedia, Quintype, Chartbeat and Conscent.ai (Bronze Partners) and IndiaDotCom Digital (online partner).