The Digital Publishing Awards honours the industry’s top talent – and we had the pleasure of attending yesterday’s awards ceremony.

The Associate of Online Publishers (AOP) celebrated 20 years of their flagship event at Old Billingsgate, hosted by comedian Sophie Duker. 

There were a total of 26 category winners for individual, team and publishing excellence across B2B and B2C. The panel of expert judges, including co-chairs Amanda Barnes, CEO of Favership House and Dominic Carter, group chief commercial officer of News UK, recognised those driving successful growth of the online publishing sector.

For Richard Reeves, managing director, AOP, in the face of change, it’s now more important than ever to take stock. He comments: “As the media landscape continues to change rapidly, it’s important we take the time to recognise the companies going above and beyond to deliver the highest possible quality for their audience. A huge well done to all the inspiring individuals and teams who work so hard to drive creativity and light the way forward through hard work, resilience and determination.”

Showing a new way forward is exactly why we created 

Propolis

. Covid subverted our concept of ‘norm’ into chaos. Naturally, the pandemic was a disruptor to our events portfolio which made up 50% of media business. It became clear that the old ways of doing business weren’t going to cut it. So, we listened to our largest customer base, CMOs, to truly understand what they needed and how we could support them.

Our customers needed to create and defend a well-informed, motivated, and now remote marketing team. They needed access to real-time, reliable information to solve their marketing challenges quickly. They needed trusted advice and guidance from the best in business. 

That’s 

Propolis

 was born, our exclusive community for B2B marketers to learn from the best to be the best through on-tap expert advice, access exclusive content and peer intelligence.

We’re overjoyed to announce that we won Gold for ‘Best Diversification of Commercial Strategy’. As the AOP puts it: “This entry’s decision to invest in a totally new business model when their core business disappeared was both brave and bold. The speed of execution based on talking to their customers and learning what they needed produced a completely fresh business model.”

We also brought home the Small Digital Publisher of the Year trophy for “demonstrating the agility and bravery needed to deliver exceptional revenue results.”

Joel Harrison, editor-in-chief, B2B Marketing, commented: “To be recognised by your peers as outstanding in a highly competitive industry means so much to everyone here – it’s a fantastic testament to the amazing team we have here at B2B marketing, and shows that we’re on a roll.

Propolis

was our Covid-accelerated transformation project, and it shows that constraints are the mother of innovation! It’s a fantastic platform that’s transforming how B2B marketers succeed – it’s wonderful to have it recognised!”

Richard O’Connor, managing director, B2B Marketing, added: “B2B Marketing is rapidly evolving from legacy publisher into a community Intelligence business, in response to the changing needs of our customers. Building a digital community during a global pandemic with traditional revenue streams under extraordinary pressure was a huge call and took incredible belief and commitment from the B2B team, our expert partners and customers.  To win two prestigious AOP awards acknowledging the strategy and the execution means so much to everyone here.”

Stay tuned. This is only the beginning.