Friday 26 October 2007

Of course it's not the taking part...

...winning's all that matters. And here are those that matter from the other night.

Best result in the face of adversity - winner: Hugh MacLeod/Stormhoek/Microsoft
Come on, how much adversity do you want? A year-old cartoon...a bottle of South African plonk...stick one on the other and that's a story? Are you kidding? Oh, and not only that, but if you're anyone other than a Microsoft employee, you won't be able to get hold of a bottle. Still, it was good enough for the Financial Times to run half a page about it. I ask you.

Most valuable piece of coverage - winner: Omnifone for the launch of MusicStation
Rob Lewis - quondam co-founder of Silicon.com - and his chums chose to stay under the radar for four years. Then, on the eve of 3GSM, they unleashed a massive payload of coverage. The full story can be seen on Fullrun.

Fair cop award for the biggest fuck up - winner: Google...
...for its incredible exploding European Press Day in June. Eric Schmidt and the co-founders of You Tube flew in to speak. Then the air conditioning failed, the wi-fi stopped working and water starting leaking through the ceiling. To cap off a lovely day, Google pissed off the German hacks in attendance by giving them nothing to write up. Specifically, the company said that it would launch local language versions of You Tube in France, Spain, Holland and Poland -- but not Germany. That is bad.

Hack nominated tech PR agency of the year - winner: Sonus PR...
...not least for its beautifully orchestrated lobbying of tech hacks which resulted in loads of nominations from journos…all uncannily similar in their wording. Respect

Freelancer of the year - winner: Nikki Alvey
Described by one client as a 'PR terrier' Nikki was urged by our compere Paul Wooding 'not to piss up the lectern...'

Staff hack of the year - winner: Phil Muncaster, IT Week
Described by one voter as: “Probably the best journalist to have to call in the world. He’s always friendly and always honest, but politely so. If you want an opinion about a campaign before you embark upon it, he’ll give you his honest answer. Most of all, he’s up for beers – and not only at the expense of the client or agency. Top bloke.” Phil also won an impromptu award on the night for best haircut.

Freelance hack of the year - winner: Dan Ilett
“Friendly, approachable, willing to give advice - happy to work with you to build a story. Yet equally, still objective and insistent on 'proper' stories.” Enough said.

World's least communicative hack - winner: Jason Stamper, CBR
We're still waiting for confirmation that he actually exists. Jason, if you're reading this, we have a very cheap trophy waiting for you...

Consumer tech publication of the year - winner: Stuff
Couldn't be there to accept the award so sent a text: "sz cnt b there 2nite. Thx 4 award." Nice.

Business tech publication of the year - winner: ZDNet.co.uk
Also won the best acceptance speech award: "Thanks for this...and thanks to The Register and ITPro for being a bit shit."

The keen-eyed among you will have noticed that there weren't awards in the "Hack nominated tech PR person of the year" or the "Loveliest client of the year" categories. This is because we received absolutely no nominations in either. What a wonderfully positive world in which we all work...hacks hate PRs; PRs hate their clients.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

from my experience working in the UK (albeit three years ago) and from trying to set up a partnership with CBR last year, I think the Jason Stamper award is completely unmerited.

he's always been responsive and helpful, even for a wet around the ears flak as i was back then.

Ed

The Flackenhacks said...

Oooh, Ed...you creep. Mind you, when you say 'partnership' was there any money in it for CBR? Be honest now...perhaps not a complete surprise that Jason was responsive if so.

Having said that, I have had good experiences with Jason in the past - I've also had times when I've not been able to get hold of him for love nor money.

Just a bit of fun though, eh?

Anonymous said...

money? well, in as much as anything CBR (or any media outlet for that matter) uses will be used to sell advertising against, then yes there was cash involved. but we weren't going to write the finchley boys a cheque - just provide a stream of content for the website.

just a bit of fun? sure looked like it from the round-ups i've seen.

Ed