UK MR Awards - Review and Results

The MRS Awards Dinner continues to gain momentum as an annual event - it's posh, it's popular and it now has more sponsors than Elton John doing a charity marathon. DRNO's reporter was privileged to sit only 27 tables from the front and watch Flamingo International carry off the BMRA's Best Agency Award.

In all fairness, our position was very much a prime spot with Award winners Nunwood Consulting and ORC International competing for the 'noisiest table' honour on either side. Not only could the amusing kiwi MC Len Cook, of the Office for National Statistics, be heard at the back thanks to some unusually fault-free technical set-up, but he could most certainly hear us.

Nominees got the chance to put their cases, along with satisfied clients, with the help of video clips created by sponsors Vox Pops International and beamed to all corners of the gathering by a network including secondary video screens for the locationally-challenged. A slightly ridiculous 3-second burst of grinding bass accompanied most people's progress to the podium to collect awards, but the nowadays near-obligatory Boxing ring / Awards ceremony samples of Tina Turner and Survivor were mercifully absent.

Individual awards were as follows:

MRS Fellowships for Don Beverly, Susan Blackall, Heather Dunn, Stephen Ellis, Sally Ford-Hutchinson, Kathleen Hamilton, Jonathan Jephcott, Corrine Moy and Richard Roberts-Miller, and the MRS Silver Medal for Phyllis MacFarlane.

MRS Conference Awards for Victoria Brooks of Fallon London (Best Presented Paper); Nick Southgate of Cogent Elliott (Best Newcomer); Mark Earls and Mark Oldridge of Ogilvy & Mather (Best New Thinking); and Anthony Tasgal of Freelance Hyphenate (Best Paper for 'The science of the brands: Alchemy, advertising and accountancy'). Andy Dexter and Virginia Valentine were given a 'Best Contribution' Award for transforming Conference generally.

Roy Langmaid of Promise and Mac Andrews of The Brand Works won the David Winton Award for the best technical paper (either at Conference or submitted specifically); Victoria Hardy of BMRB International won the Worshipful Company of Marketors Award; and Britvic's ebullient Ben Tuff was presented with the Talent Magnet Award he won a while back along with Davina Donoghue of Evo, who could not be present, capping a rather low profile year (we hear) for the two intended flag-carriers of young research.

The above winners were known in advance. After dinner the excitement grew with lists of nominees for each award and sealed envelopes providing a suitably Oscars(tm)-style ceremony.

The MRS Applications of Research Award was won by Simon Clough of MGN and independent consultant Lyn McGregor, the ISBA Award for a paper illustrating the use of research in the creation and evaluation of effective advertising was won by Jonathan Fletcher of Citigate DVL Smith and the ASC / MRS Award for Technology Effectiveness by Information Tools for Harmoni.

The video clips then began with much giggling and cheering from those present who were 'seeing themselves on telly', and the crunch part of the evening for agencies arrived. The BMRA's Peter Jackling presented its Effectiveness Awards as follows:

Innovation - Green Light International
People Management - Large Agency - TNS
People Management - Smaller Agency - Nunwood Consulting
Quality - Test Research
Best Agency - Flamingo International.

Honorary Fellowships were presented to Professor Michael Thomas, outgoing President of the MRS and Commander Cross of the Polish Order of Merit for his help in transforming the post-communist Polish economy, and Richard Webber, creator of the ACORN and MOSAIC classification systems.

The coveted MrWeb Eardrum Awards are as follows:

Noisiest Individual - someone on the TNS table for repeated high-pitched whoops
Mean Noisiest Table throughout the evening and noisiest award celebrants - Nunwood Consulting
Peak Decibels Award for the loudest racket made by a table at any point - ORC International.

Our Congratulations to all the winners and to the MRS for successfully - we felt - putting on the Ritz.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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