Straitstimes.com clinches bronze award at Asian Digital Media Awards 2014

SINGAPORE - Straitstimes.com, the online site of The Straits Times, Singapore Press Holdings' flagship English-language newspaper, has won a bronze award at the Asian Digital Media Awards.

Its bronze award for the "Best Mobile Service" category was for two newsletters which it carried stories on the aftermath of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight which was shot down over Ukraine in July 2014. Hong Kong's Apple Daily won gold and its Taiwan branch bagged the silver award in the same category.

The awards ceremony was held on Tuesday (Nov 18) at the Orchard Parade Hotel, Singapore. Into its fifth year, the awards attracted 158 entries from 16 countries this year.

The two newsletters were sent to readers who subscribed to The Straits Times' free e-newsletter service. 

The first newsletter was sent one day (July 18) after the crash, giving readers a timely update of what had happened. This was followed by the second newsletter which was delivered three days later on July 21 to help readers stay abreast of the latest developments without having to comb through multiple sites for information.

Each newsletter featured six to eight articles which included latest updates, summaries and analyses of the events that took place. 

Targeted at readers seeking news on their mobile devices, they designed with an easy-to-use presentation and optimised to work on all mobile devices and operating systems.

Both editions of the newsletters reached a subscriber base of more than 95,000 users, with an open-rate reaching 29 per cent.

Mr Eugene Leow, Deputy Straits Times Digital Editor said: "We are very pleased to have won this bronze award. The newsletters were a valued-added service for readers, both subscribers and non-subscribers. Rather than making readers search for news, we delivered it to them in a clean and simple format for easy mobile surfing. Judging from the response, this service has given us the opportunity to further strengthen our relationship with existing subscribers and promote awareness of our rich content to non-subscribers."

Awards were also given out for seven other categories. The Age from Australia won gold in the "Best News Website" category and AFP clinched gold in the "Best Outstanding New Project". 

The Asian Digital Media Awards recognise media companies and publishers that have adopted digital media as part of their total product offering to meet major changes in how people consume news and information today.

It is organised by WAN-IFRA, the global organisation of the world's newspapers and news publishers. It represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3,000 companies in more than 120 countries.

maryanns@sph.com.sg