The World of Firsts

So last night turned out to be another series of firsts.

a) It was the first time I attended a professional 'awards ceremony'.
b) It was the first time I had ever seen that many marketing and PR people in the same room.
c) It was the first time I had to sit through such an excruciatingly boring event.
d) It was the first time I had encountered that many (inflated!) egos congregated at one place.

It wasn't all bad. The red wine was good and there were enough fashion disasters and bad presenters to keep me entertained. Alas, despite the 'Oscar Glam' dress-code, there wasn't much else that was glamorous about it. In fact, it felt a lot like sitting through a college graduation ceremony where there's a stream of convocation gowns shuffling across the stage as the emcee drones a list of names. But maybe I represent a minority because while I was out having a cigarette and everybody was slyly checking each other out while trying to remain uber cool, I heard this annoying voice quip, "I think we're the best-looking agency here!"

Like seriously mate, go look in the mirror again and can it.

You see, I completely support the initiative to recognize the industry's best. I applaud the idea and I urge the brilliant people who came up with the concept to keep it going. Alas, as much as we marketing and PR people like the sound of our own voices, we could occasionally use some entertainment. Give us something to talk about apart from griping about how Ogilvy wins everything.

Now, I'm not being a sore loser; not at all. In fact, I'm bloody proud to say that the little agency I work at got nominated to compete in the Public Relations Agency of the Year category for Best Media Relations Strategy -'Local Hero'. Kudos to the fine people at Fulford PR for walking away with the award. I'm sure it was a much deserved win. But hell, we got nominated and that's a huge enough feather in our caps considering that we've only been around for 2 years.

And so the night carried on in one main vein.
1. Overall emcee announces guest who is supposed to announce the winner of the upcoming category.
2. Guest arrives on stage at rostrum and either drones or bellows into the mike.
3. Nominees of award category are announced. (Cue: Gawk at the powerpoint screen.)
4. Guest grabs mike, does not wait for drumroll and announces bronze prize winner.
5. Winner arrives on stage, shakes hand with guest announcer, grabs trophy (it was a cube this year).
6. Guest and winner grin painfully for photo opp.
7. Winner lopes off stage as guest returns to rostrum.
8. Repeats steps 4 through 7 for the silver and gold awards.

Multiply the above by 3.5 hours interspersed with smoke breaks, toilet breaks, and a four-course dinner and you would have a pretty good idea of what last night was like.

The key takeaways from last night's experience were:
a) don't go there hoping to win unless you're from Ogilvy (I kid!),
b) enjoy the free flow of booze (hone your 'getting the waiting staff's attention' skills prior to this; I swear they ignore you on purpose),
c) eat your food,
d) make fun of people as much as you want and laugh,
e) pat yourself on the back for you have been invited to attend from amongst thousands of others in the same field of work,
f) and tell yourself, "Well, there's always next year."

:)

And well, yes, there's always next year.