Celebrating Digital Innovation with Wavemaker and Infidigit, ETBrandEquity
The India DigiPlus Awards 2026The India DigiPlus Awards 2026, hosted by ETBrandEquity.com, celebrated the visionary brands, agencies, and individual trailblazers reshaping the country’s digital landscape.
In the Special Awards, The House of Abhinandan Lodha won the Brand of the Year title. Wavemaker India and Infidigit took top agency honors as Network Agency of the Year and Independent Digital Agency of the Year, respectively. Greishma Singh, vice president, marketing, Coca‑Cola India & Southwest Asia was named Digital Marketer of the Year. Schbang’s Chirag Shah won Digital Person of the Year. HOCCO’s CMO Roli Shrivastava won Next Generation Award (Under 40) – Bronze.
The Digital Campaign of the Year category highlighted high-impact storytelling and media execution across industries. Kingfisher and JioStar won a Gold for their Kingfisher Good Times Hangout on IPL’26 campaign. Hero MotoCorp and Essencemediacom (WPP Media) also won a Gold in the category for their Hero Destini: Engineering the “New Hero” Narrative campaign. Two silvers were awarded in this category. One was bagged by Shemaroo Entertainment for their #HarRoleIsHerRole campaign, and the other one went to R for Rabbit & Twelv Productions for their Mother’s Day 2026 campaign, Tough Moms Need Strong Support.Over 200 awards were given across 80 categories. Close to 100 chief digital officers, chief marketing officers, performance marketing leads, digital leads, and content specialists from India’s most prominent advertisers and digital-first brands evaluated the entries. The Grand Jury, a diverse panel of CEOs, COOs, CBOs, industry veterans, and startup founders, all of whom are driving the country’s digital growth story, evaluated the marquee categories. EY was the official tabulator of the awards.
Here’s the full winners list.
The jury verdict
While evaluating the entries, the jury noticed a strong shift towards innovation, creativity and experimentation in digital marketing. One of the most prominent trends was the growing adoption of AI, with several brands already using AI in meaningful and innovative ways to strengthen their digital campaigns. The jury found this particularly encouraging, as it demonstrated how quickly marketers are adapting to emerging technologies.
Another clear trend was the rise of social-first and creator-first campaigns. Brands are increasingly designing campaigns specifically for social platforms and leveraging creators to build relevance and engagement with consumers. Alongside this, there was a significant focus on performance marketing, which is no longer restricted to big tech platforms. E-commerce and quick-commerce platforms are also increasingly becoming important channels for performance-led marketing.
The jury also observed a broader variety of campaign approaches, including celebrity-led initiatives, festive campaigns, SEO-driven campaigns and brand-awareness programmes. This indicated that marketers are experimenting with different digital formats and touchpoints depending on their objectives and target audiences.
Another trend that stood out was the increasing use of humour and human-centric storytelling. Many brands appeared to be moving away from purely performance-focused communication and were finding more relatable and engaging ways to connect with consumers. This made several campaigns feel more conversational, culturally relevant and consumer-centric.
The jury also noticed a strong execution focus. Some entries demonstrated that brands were not only setting ambitious objectives but were also able to execute effectively and, in certain cases, exceed the targets they had initially set for themselves. This emphasis on delivering tangible results added another dimension to the evaluation.
Overall, the entries reflected a digital marketing ecosystem that is becoming more innovative, technology-led, socially driven, creator-oriented and focused on measurable outcomes, while simultaneously becoming more human and engaging in the way brands connect with consumers.
- Published On Sep 25, 2026 at 09:59 PM IST
