Reflecting on the AOP’s 2021 Digital Publishing Awards, our COO Danny Spears says premium publishers continue to innovate and excel
Friday 17th September, 2021
As society continues to emerge from the impact of the pandemic, it was brilliant to see the cream of UK publishers come out to celebrate at the AOP’s Digital Publishing Awards yesterday afternoon.
Even if a single award hadn’t been presented, the idea of attending a hybrid in-person event (the Ozone team tuned in live at the office) with some of the best editors, strategists, digital practitioners and commercial folk in the industry was one invite that couldn’t be refused.
While no-one can deny the past year has continued to be a challenge, we have continued to see fantastic performances from quality digital publishers - with audiences continuing at near-record highs - as Brits turn to their favourite titles for information, education, entertainment and inspiration.
And this amazing performance was certainly demonstrated at these awards. Across both consumer-facing and B2B publishers quality editorial remains a barometer for publisher excellence - brilliantly demonstrated by Cosmopolitan’s Jennifer Savin winning Journalist of the Year for her use of data and consumer understanding to deliver law-changing content. Data and consumer thinking was also strong across many other categories; nowhere more demonstrated than The Sun’s ‘Audience Development Team of the Year’ award for a strategy kept on track throughout the pandemic, and The Independent’s Commercial Data Analyst - Emily Robinson - picking up the Rising Star award.
As Danny mingled with the winners and finalists, the Ozone team tuned in live from the office and celebrated a Highly Commended award for Ozone Marketplace in the Digital Innovation category
Smart thinking was celebrated with The Telegraph’s Commercial Innovation team picking up the Product Development Team award for their work in enhancing both the advertiser and reader experience, while Dezeen won multiple awards for flipping their business in response to the pandemic - an effort that was rightly recognised with them being named Small Digital Publisher of the Year. Bravo!
We could go on celebrating all the winners - and indeed the other equally brilliant finalists - but I’ll let you read more about them here. However, there is no denying that the overriding winner at this event is the world of quality publishing as a whole. While at Ozone we celebrate this every day - it’s core to our cross-publisher proposition - seeing editors celebrate alongside ad ops, journalists alongside sales teams, was a very potent reminder of the balanced and highly considered approach that quality publishers employ everyday to maintain reader interest and ensure this industry remains well-funded for the wider societal good. We couldn’t be prouder to be part of a sector delivering such insightful and well-executed work.
Final point, a massive well done and thank you to Richard Reeves and his team at the AOP for hosting a fantastic hybrid event - here’s to next year, and hope even more of us will be celebrating in person!
