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Johannesburg – 24.com, the digital publishing arm of Media24, walked away with several awards at the IAB Bookmark Awards in Johannesburg on Thursday night, including best digital publisher.
The awards, hosted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau South Africa (IAB SA), recognise the best digital and tech innovations in the media industry. Now in its 10th year, the IAB Bookmark Awards honour excellence and acknowledge the powerful impact of digital in the overall marketing mix.
24.com walked away with the Black Pixel award for best digital publisher for the second year running.
Other awards included gold for the Gupta Leaks under the special feature category, which News24 shared with amaBhungane and Daily Maverick.
Silver was awarded to Daily Kick and News24 Edge for Publisher Apps and for Netwerk24's 'A Medical Milestone' in the special features category.
Other awards include bronze in the Craft Award for News or Feature writing for News24 editor in chief Adriaan Basson and Caryn Dolley for a News24's 'Underworld Unmasked'.
News24 editor-in-chief Adriaan Basson with investigative journalist Angelique Serrao during the IAB Bookmark Awards on Thursday evening. (Jerusha Sukhdeo-Raath, News24).
Henriette Loubser, Jo Van Eeden and Maygene de Wee got the same award for Netwerk24's 'The Disappearance of Anchen Muller'.
VML South Africa's work for HuffPostSA took gold for Stop the Cycle Social Media Publications and Display Advertising silver for Stop the Cycle Innovation use of media, and another silver award for Stop the Cycle Native Advertising.
News24 and Netwerk24 won the bronze award in Live Event Coverage for News: From moving fast, to streaming live.
News24 also won bronze for Mobile Publications, while Netwerk24 took bronze for Publisher Apps for South Africa's largest subscription-based portal for news and analysis.
Channel24 won bronze in the online photography, illustration and imagery category for 'A picture is worth a thousand words'.
Commenting on the awards, 24.com chief executive officer Andreij Horn said: "The Bookmarks is without a doubt the industry event of the year. This is not only peer recognition, but especially important, recognition from the advertising industry as well."
He pointed out that each leading brand title in the publishing world has its own distinct personality, tone and mission. "These things individually, and their effect collectively, is not locked up in the masthead - it is given life by the people who make that masthead stand for something.
"In most instances awards like these are therefore given to a title, or business unit brand, for the simple reason that almost without exception, no great work in the digital world springs from the efforts of a single individual."
Horn said it takes a whole team to "create a working environment in which people can excel".
He added: "These awards reflect the team’s commitment to serving society at large with quality content one can trust, and our commercial partners with a brand-safe environment in which they can reach a highly engaged audience effectively."
Summary of the collective results
In 2017 Media24’s digital brands won in total 16 Bookmarks, of which 3 were Gold, 9 Silver and 3 Bronze, plus the Black Pixel for Best Publisher.
This year our brands walked away with a total of 20 Bookmark awards, of which 3 were Gold, 7 Silver and 9 Bronze, plus the Black Pixel for Best Publisher.
These stacked up like this:
Gold: Three
News24 in partnership with AmaBhungane and Daily Maverick for #GuptaLeaks in the special features category.
HuffPost in partnership with VML for Stop the Cycle took Gold in the Display advertising category as well as in the Social Media publications section.
Silver: Seven
Netwerk24, DailyKick and News24 Edge got one award each, while HuffPost in partnership with VML, got four.
Bronze: Nine
News24 got two, Netwerk24, two, Channel24 got one for A picture is worth a thousand words in the category for Online Photography, Illustration and Imagery, The SpaceStation one, HuffPost in partnership with VML got two, and the last one was awarded to News24 in partnership with Netwerk24 for live streaming.
The Black Pixel for Best Publisher takes the tally up to 20 in total.
From a Media24 perspective, the company's total is actually 21 awards, because SoccerLaduma won a silver award for Creating South Africa’s Biggest Podcast.
