Friday, November 10, 2006

Today’s blog: Winners, losers and bleeding ears

Short and sweet-ish entry about my time at the Promax BDA Asia awards which managed to surprise me in more ways than one.

First off all, I have never been to this awards show before but I was told this year was its 13th instalment (whoo-pee!) and that it is a ‘big deal’ (well double whoo-pee! for me – I don’t even like watching the Oscars in the comfort of my own living room so telling me that this is a ‘big deal’ is not going to brainwash me into thinking I will enjoy this – turns out I was wrong, I sort of did enjoy the show in the end).

I could go on all day about the little things I hate about awards shows but I won’t because (a) no one likes a whiner and (b) you got to take into consideration what the awards are celebrating and for whom it means something too -- and (c) this is supposed to be a short entry.

Anyways, fast forward to the awards show which was held in a smallish but cosy little place called ‘The Art House at The Old Parliament Level 2’ and you go in and you see these whistles on every chair. I would very soon start hating those whistles.

I walked past the trophies and took my seat.



Soon enough when everyone else was settled in mayhem took place and I am talking madri-gras (without the nudity) / national day?, type parade noises of mayhem which were bursting my ear drums and had me wishing the once impressive looking table of trophies would disappear and I could leave the madness. Everyone except probably me and Marketing’s new intern was blowing the #%*^! out of these darn whistles and it lasted for an eternity + 1 day.

Finally someone took out a gun and put me out of my misery…it was the host telling us the show was starting so we should all settle down. That’s when the good bits began.

They would announce the category, say who won gold and silver, display the work on the giant screen and then only present a trophy to the gold winner – throughout the entire evening the maximum amount of time anyone spent making a speech was 7 seconds -- great stuff.

But what I really liked about the show was how they played the silver and gold medal winning entries in full and on the big screen too. Not only did it entertain the audience (and let those involved hear the plaudits) but as a journalist at Marketing I could judge things for myself and ask myself questions like is this gold medal winner really better than the silver medal winner? Why? How come? I can think of a few better ones for that category and so on...

At least I wasn’t being force fed the idea that this piece of work is gold without even getting to see it and leave it at that. And I know I wasn’t the only one in the room who hadn’t seen a lot of those winning entries.


I promised you a short and sweet-ish entry so I will summarise the rest of the evening -- a bunch of deserving professionals won a bunch of trophies for good pieces of work and celebrated in style afterwards.

Did I disappoint you with this blog entry? Let me know, I am all ears – albeit bloodied and slightly deaf.

No comments: