Berlin chapter of World Publishing Expo & Digital Content Expo 2017

Designed to be a global meeting point for global publishing community, World Publishing Expo & DCX Digital Content Expo 2017 marked a new success, with 25 percent increase in visitors’ turnover and exhibitors praised high-level of engagements during the three days of the event, which pulled news media specialists from all over the world. The event evaluated emerging technologies, innovations and trends sweeping the industry. With nearly 5000 visitors and 181 exhibitors on hand, the increased participation was a solid signal that the event resonated with this industry and signalled promise for expansion.

With key speakers on four stages and the array of suppliers on hand – from start-ups up to established players across the multimedia spectrum – visitors at the IFRA World Publishing Expo and Digital Content Expo (DCX) 2017 had a plethora of opportunities to engage and network with the industry’s leading innovators during the twin events.

World Digital Media Awards

Pushing the boundaries of creativity and technology, World Digital Media Awards during the event brought on stage a host of winners from all over the world, recognising their outstanding digital media works. Michael Golden, vice chairman of The New York Times and WAN-IFRA president, opened the day’s events talking about how any publisher in the world can thrive, not just the iconic publisher, if they focus on their audience. The awards recognise publishers that have created ground-breaking digital products that engage readers while increasing online business. The winners and their award-winning works are listed as followed:

Glimpses of Expo

Prev 1 of 6 Next

Best News Website: The Guardian News and Media, UK
Project: http://www.theguardian.com/ Constant investment of resources and imagination have paid off once again for the Guardian News & Media, UK, and its flagship site, theguardian.com.

Best in Lifestyle, Sports or Entertainment Website: The New York Times, USA
Project: Rio Olympics website – The New York Times created a microsite for their broad coverage of the Rio games that included a vast array of content – text, images, graphics, videos and more – covering all aspects of the event.

Best Use of Online Video including Virtual Reality: Guardian News and Media, UK
Project: 6×9: A virtual experience of solitary confinement – 6×9, the Guardian’s first virtual reality experience, put the viewer inside a US solitary confinement prison cell to illustrate the psychological damage that can be caused when a person spends an extended amount of time in isolation.

Best Data Visualisation: South China Morning Post, Hong Kong
Project: Belt and Road Initiative – There are many projects being set up as part of the One Belt One Road initiative that are instigating an infrastructure building-boom across Central Asia and into Europe as well as Southeast Asia and the east coast of Africa. Some 65 countries are involved and there are some US$ 1.3 trillion worth of projects already under way. South China Morning Post published its project to coincide with Beijing’s 15 May Belt and Road Forum where 28 heads of state and government were in attendance for President Xi to outline his ambitious plans and targets.

Best News Mobile Service: (Tie) Media24 South Africa and Arte Radio Televisivo Argentina SA
Projects: News24 Edge is the personalised news app from South African online publication News 24. With content pulled from News24.com’s business, leisure, and lifestyle brands, the app allows users to choose the lifestyle areas that they’re most interested in, while continuing to deliver daily breaking news.

Best Lifestyle, Sports or Entertainment Mobile Services: WeMedia01 Ltd., Hong Kong
Project: 01 run together@Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon
Running as an activity has become very popular in Hong Kong, with more and more people joining marathon or running competitions. HK01 came up with the idea to have their photographers take photos of as many participants as possible and upload to their website, identifying them by the number plates pinned on their shirts. Participants can access their photos by using their competition number. HK01 offers this service free to attract people to join their membership through the mobile app.

Best Innovation New Product: Grupo América, Argentina
Project: UNO: Argentina’s first native mobile media. Designed for millennials, it’s a Grupo América spin-off (grupoamerica.com.ar). UNO produces specific content for each platform (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Medium, Twitter, Taringa!, etc), and focuses on audiovisual: short videos, animated GIF, illustrations and memes. It also publishes original video content each day, producing more than 80 videos per month.

Best in Social Media Engagement: Grupo América, Argentina
Project: UNO: Argentina’s first native mobile media, Grupo América (see above discription).

Best Digital Advertising Campaign including Branded Content: Aller Media AS, Norway
Project: www.KK.no – The oldest women’s title in Norway showed it has a full hand of new cards as Aller Media’s www.KK.no won with a visually compelling full-screen approach.

Best Innovation to Engage Youth Audiences: Star Media Group Berhad, Malaysia
Project: R.AGE Documentaries
R.AGE, the youth section of a major newspaper in Malaysia, decided to get rid of their print section in order to produce in-depth, investigative web documentaries. Each of their documentaries has a call-to-action, allowing the viewer to get involved in solving the issue explored in the documentary. In the past year, they have averaged 550,000 views a month.

Discourse on fake news
Jeff Jarvis, news integrist, author and professor at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, at a session on the rising tide of fake news said it is a mistake taking fake news like a commodity we can easily control, just turn on and off. “Fake news is an issue of human behaviour. We have to understand that fundamentally,” he pointed out. As the issue has been a major priority for publishers, journalists and concerned citizens around the world for much of the past year, almost everybody acknowledges that fake news has been around for decades or even much longer, the internet clearly has exacerbated both the problem and its effects.

Exhibitors eulogise Exhibitors at the expos praised the quality of contacts they attracted and emphasised the need for such a global platform for technical solutions to the news media publishers. “Our expectations were slightly exceeded. We observe that our solutions trigger thought processes within news publishing houses and that they openly consider where transformation can lead them to. The expo is increasingly becoming a platform for learning processes and individual customisation of solutions.” –Annika Schulz, manager- marketing & communications, ppi Media GmbH “Our customers were here and want to continue to come as the expo is a very necessary platform for them, so we want to help to keep it alive.” –Christian Seitz, marketing officer, manroland “It was our first expo, where we could test our solution out on a bigger market. Overall it has been a good experience for us and we had some really good leads. There were the right people. It is more about quality than quantity.” –Christoffer Birch-Jensen, Business Development Director, Norkon “The leads we got the last few days here have been valuable and relevant for us. It has been interesting to see such a comprehensive spectrum in one expo – all the way from digital innovation, like AI in publishing, to people that are optimimising paper publishing. To experience a crowd that is so diverse, and yet focused on similar problems, has certainly provided great perspective.” –Mario Vasilescu, CEO, Rewordly “We are satisfied and would say we had a better year than last year. There were quite a few German visitors, from Poland, Belgium, and interestingly, some from Malaysia, India and Russia, for example.” –Katia Fasola, Marketing and business development manager, Tecnavia