Major audio and OTT players claim highest metals at Media Brand Awards 2023

The highly anticipated third edition of Media Brand Awards took place in New Delhi recently. Major media brands bagged the ‘M’ trophy for their extraordinary work.

Media Brand Awards is an event devoted to a sector that has an especially high frequency of marketing communication, an industry that has an effervescent and fiercely competitive ecosystem. The event identifies and celebrates extraordinary initiatives by all media brands in the print, TV, audio, online, OTT space.

The 2023 edition of Media Brand Awards had 24 categories (several old categories were dropped and 10 new ones were introduced).

Apart from the Gold, Silver and Bronze metals, there were 'Special Awards' in each medium for the brand that won the largest number of metals – 30 points for Gold, 20 for Silver and 10 for Bronze.

Red FM, the popular radio channel, took away the maximum number (16) of metals – six Gold, four Silver and six Bronze. It won 'Audio Brand of the Year' award. Other winners from the audio industry included JioSaavn and Universal Music India.

Viacom18 Digital Ventures came in right behind Red FM, winning five Gold, three Silver and three Bronze metals. It also claimed the 'OTT Platform of the Year' award. Other winners in the OTT space included Amazon miniTV, SonyLIV, ZEE5 and G Plus.

By winning five Gold, four Silver and two Bronze metals, Zee Entertainment emerged as the 'TV Entertainment Channel of the Year'. Dainik Bhaskar Group, with two Gold and one Bronze metals, claimed the 'Newspaper of the Year' award.

With a metal each in Gold, Silver and Bronze, Times Network won the 'TV News Network of the Year' award. With a metal each in Gold and Silver, Indiatimes won the title of 'Online Publisher of the Year'. Other winners included TV18 Broadcast, Amar Ujala and Warner Bros. Discovery.

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

Best integrated campaign: SonyLIV won the top spot for its drama series ‘Maharani Season 2’.

Best brand activation: Red FM's Independence Day campaign ‘Phone Free Day’, and Amar Ujala's 'Maa Tujhe Pranaam - An Ode to India's Independence', tied for Gold.

Best social media campaign: Amazon miniTV and Viacom18 Digital Ventures tied for Gold, for the comedy show ‘Case Toh Banta Hai’, and crime series ‘Cyber Vaar’, respectively.

Speaking on the occasion, Sreekant Khandekar, co-founder and CEO of afaqs!, said, "It's great to be back with an on-ground event after three years. Media Brand Awards is another way of celebrating the revival of media brands, post-COVID."

The entries were judged by a 20-member jury. These well-known names from the world of advertising, media and marketing, included Anand Chakravarthy (Omnicom Media Group); Anish Varghese (Liqvd Asia); Anu Joseph (Creativeland Asia); Arvind Kumar (DS Group); Burzin Mehta (Gozoop Group); Chandni Shah (Kinnect); Chetan Asher (Tonic Worldwide); Gopa Menon (Mindshare); Kulvinder Ahluwalia (FCB Ulka); Mohit Joshi (Havas Media); Navin Khemka (EssenceMediacom); Nikhil Kumar (mediasmart Mobile); Niti Kumar (Starcom India); Rajshekar Patil (VMLY&R); Rupak Ved (LS Digital Group); Samriddh Dasgupta (Heads Up for Tails); Shirish Agarwal (Panasonic Life Solutions); Udit Agarwal (Exotel); Vivek Bhambhani (Grey Group); and Vivek Das (FoxyMoron – Zoo Media).

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 5.8/10, which showed that the overall standard of entries was high.

You can check the complete list of winners here.