PR Week Awards 2013

Last Tuesday saw the glitterati of the PR world gather at The Grosvenor House to celebrate the achievements of the past year at the Annual PR Week Awards 2013. Dubbed the ‘Oscar’s of the PR World’ these awards bring together the big and the small and the good and the great of the communications industry – and this year was no exception.

Arriving at the Great Room in all their glory the nights’ nominees nervously entered the grand venue. Fashion choices ranged from timeless Hollywood elegance to mildly outrageous – and that was just the men. The champagne reception saw many faces of old reunite and offer warm (but sometimes false) wishes of luck to competing nominees – with everybody’s eyes on the coveted prize. A change of layout at the venue this year mixed things up by arranging tables around the centre-stage, giving all guests a much better view of the night’s entertainment.

The night was kicked-off by compere Rob Brydon who, as with all great compere’s, combined successfully insulting the profession and achievements, nationality and appearance of everybody in the room in one foul swoop without actually causing offence. Next up… drum roll… and no that’s not for the awards themselves but for the half time entertainment from JUNK, a Britain’s-Got-Talent-esque band performing a medley of songs, playing on instruments made of, you guessed it, junk. Interesting.

Now for the awards… notable mentions from the night must go to new guys on the block – Dynamo PR who scooped a deserved trio of awards for their work with 3Doodler, winning categories for Technology campaign, Global Campaign and Marketing Communications: Consumer (annual fees less than £100k). Golin Harris secured two trophies for their cabinet, winning the highly coveted Consultancy of the Year and Large Consultancy of the Year, Manifest London secured Small Agency of the Year and M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment walked away with Medium Sized Agency of the Year.

Other notable mentions should include Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe who was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award and Hope&Glory who, much to the delight of the room, were awarded New Consultancy of the Year – a fantastic accolade for a new agency to secure and no doubt this team will be adding many more awards to their collection over the coming years.

For a full list of the night’s nominees and winners head to PRWeek.com. Hanson Search would like to pass on huge congratulations to all the night’s nominees, highly commended and of course the winners. It was a fun night, and it made for a tiring Wednesday, but we’ll definitely be back next year to do it all over again.