Sky News, Joe Media and The Guardian win at the Digiday Media Awards Europe

David Pemsel and Katharine Viner of the Guardian received the first-ever Digiday Award, which acknowledges leading individuals in European media who have been instrumental in creating positive change for the industry. When asked about the standing of The Guardian in a tumultuous news climate, Viner said “Guardian journalism is thriving despite the turmoil around us. It’s inspiring to have forged this path toward securing a sustainable future for The Guardian through powerful journalism and a deep relationship with our readers.”

Also taking a top spot is The Guardian Labs, which won Branded Content Team of the Year as a cap on a prodigious year that included a documentary for Nikon, jump-starting over a dozen new businesses on eBay and benchmarked average results across three of their largest categories — charity, travel and food and drink.

Four-year-old digital publisher JOE, known for its wit and outspoken political musings, walks away from One Marylebone with the award for Publisher of the Year, following a year of continued partnership with multinational brands like Guinness, Adidas, Cadbury and McDonald’s. With verticals including Football JOE, Politics JOE, Rugby JOE and a handful of others, the Maximum Media-owned company has been able to invest in journalism while remaining focused on entertaining, shareable and enlightening content.

See the full list of this year’s winners below.

Best Branded Content Series
Jungle Creations & Twisted for Baileys, The Story Lab & Carat – Nobody puts Baileys in the corner

Jungle Creations and Twisted teamed up for “Nobody puts Baileys in the corner,” a content series that set out to prove that Bailey’s is more than just a holiday treat. One original recipe video became the most viewed branded video on Facebook in the U.K. the week it rolled out.

Best Custom Advertising
UBS, T Brand Studio & Spark Foundry – Are You Investing In What Matters To You?

Swiss multinational investment bank UBS teamed up with T Brand Studio and Spark Foundry for a 360-degree custom content campaign that tackled the issue of sustainable investing. Using New York Times audience consumption data, the group found that the best way to engage readers was through a quiz, so they developed “Are You Investing In What Matters To You?” which helps readers determine their core investing values.

Best Live Event
Spirit Media – Whole presents: Music 4 Mental Health

Mental health campaign “Whole” aims to encourage young people to speak out and seek help when needed. The initiative’s first-ever live fundraising event is taking home this year’s award for Best Live Event after selling out the Roundhouse in four hours and unleashing the power of celebrity to help change the conversation around mental health.

Best New Vertical or Brand
PinkNews – Snapchat Discover

PinkNews publishes diverse and inclusive content daily via their Snapchat Discover Channel, which has become a crucial resource for LGBT+ audiences and their allies. The publisher has assembled a team to manage their presence on Snapchat, a platform that has inspired their larger PinkNews team to push boundaries. 

Best Original Content Series
RT – #Romanovs100

Global round-the-clock news network RT took home Best Original Content Series at this year’s Digiday Media Awards Europe for their #Romanovs100 campaign which brought to life the archives of the Russian family. This award comes after multiple nominations across the Digiday Awards, Digiday Video Awards and Digiday Content Marketing Awards.

Best Use of Audience Data
Svenska Dagbladet – The Oracle (Oraklet)

News breaking media company Svenska Dagbladet was founded in 1884 and quickly became Sweden’s most reputable culture and business paper. Its tool, Oraklet, analyzes published articles and identifies when certain reader interest levels are reached, then indicates whether the article is suitable for ads to run which would recruit new subscriptions.

Best Use of Live
Ruptly – Ruptly Live

Rupty Live allows users with no formal coding training to stream content that includes custom advertisements directly to media sites. The 9-year-old company set out to create a platform that allows for live events, 360-degree video and drone footage to be published directly onto social media networks like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Periscope and succeeded.

Best Use of Social
RT – #Romanovs100

Best Use of Technology
Sky – Royal Wedding: Who’s Who Live

Best Use of Video
Sky News

Publisher Platform of the Year
Permutive

Giving publishers the ability to connect users with related data is paramount. Publishers looking to dive deeper into their audience data turn to Permutive for the ability to connect user data in one place that does not rely on third-party cookies, which in turn increases the quality and scale of data collected.

Adtech Platform of the Year
The Telegraph – Clarity

To combat the lack of transparency in branded content, The Telegraph created Clarity: a live reporting tool which details audience reach and sources, scroll depth, uniques and more to clients in order to increase trust in numbers they’re reporting.

Video Platform of the Year
Spirable – Spirable for Vodafone

Ireland’s largest mobile network Vodafone couldn’t compete against other known device brands, so they teamed up with video optimization platform Spirable to automate the generation of personalized, contextually relevant marketing videos that would include dynamic elements like location, time of day and weather to position Vodafone as a reliable leader within the market.

Partnership of the Year
The Telegraph & Brand USA – Visit USA

Brand USA’s mission is to increase international visitation to the U.S. As part of a multi-year partnership with The Telegraph, the Washington D.C. based destination marketing company answered the question “Who’s going to visit the USA now?” with an immersive deep dive into the history of music in America as a pull for affluent music fans worldwide.

Digital Product of the Year
ITV Digital Studios – This Morning App

The largest commercial TV broadcaster, producer and distributor in the U.K., ITV, created an app that since October 2018 has allowed one-third of their daily audience to keep up with the show’s gossip, style tips, health advice and more. The application is a piece of a larger initiative related to the future proofing of their business.

Marketing Campaign of the Year
Merkle, Periscopix & Twitter – Making Paid Search Real-Time With the Power of Tweets

Merkle, Periscopix and Twitter teamed up to conquer paid search in real time through a bespoke tool named Magpie. Each hour on the hour, the crawler pulls the U.K.’s top 50 trends on Twitter, identifies the top tweets, then categorizes them by trends and overall sentiment. The objective? Using paid search to reach users at the moment they’re looking at what’s trending.

Branded Content Team of the Year
The Guardian Labs

Editorial Team of the Year
Sky News

Video Team of the Year
Jungle Creations

With 39 billion video views and the record for the number of views generated by a single media property in their pockets, UK-based Jungle Creations has been named Video Team of the Year. From challenging the notion that Diageo’s Baileys Irish Cream is for holidays to selling personalized pet socks, the growing team has been able to connect to audiences in informative and entertaining ways.

Publisher of the Year
JOE

Digiday Award for Social Good
Lime Pictures – Hollyoaks #DontFilterFeelings

Channel 4’s long-standing daily drama Hollyoaks features issue-led storylines focusing on issues like depression and self-harm among others. To support the storylines, the #DontFilterFeelings campaign, which featured the shows cast and crew revealing their own personal stories as a way to de-stigmatize mental health, was created.

The Digiday Award
David Pemsel & Katharine Viner of The Guardian