The PR Week Awards are widely accepted as the ‘Oscars’ of the UK PR Industry though that may have now changed. This was the first time in many years that I felt that the judges had lost the plot by consistently choosing award winners that any other year would not have been successful or which will not be recognised by other award ceremonies.
Chatting to people afterwards there was a sense of disbelief and embarrassment about a number of the key categories that were won on the night. The head of judging, DJ Collins from Google should go back to his decks and leave judging to others.
Campaign of the Year, normally such a prestigious award to win, was a shocker. ‘Celebrity’ Chantelle Houghton perched on top of a Christmas tree pretending to be a Christmas fairy. Campaign of the Year: Really? I liked the creativity but surely this was a stunt and surely this wasn’t the best campaign that the UK PR industry created in 2010/11. I know for a fact it wasn’t. One of the explanations as to why this deserved campaign of the year noted: “the photograph included the Lakeside branding so it could not be edited out of the photograph.” My goodness, if that means it’s worth an award then our office would be littered with trophies making it extremely hard to move around!
Many agencies complained about the ridiculous questions that were given to them by judges in the presentation sessions. Those that had never run or worked at agencies asking about key agency KPI’s such as pitch conversion rates – while having no idea about what was good or bad and how to decipher the answers given.
Communicator of the Year – don’t even get me started on this one! Yes, the Blackpool Football Club manager Ian Holloway cheered people up with his frankness and humour but, the Communicator of the Year Award? Surely there was someone more deserving than Ian Holloway. In previous years we have had people fighting for justice and human rights. This award has now been completely devalued.
What on earth was PR Week thinking? Who put the judging panel together? In this, their 25th anniversary year, what should have been a celebration turned into an embarrassment.