How to make friends and influence PRs – the Hildebrand method
And so to the CommsCon Awards, where host Joe Hildebrand was his usual erudite and witty self.
He opened the proceedings with a speech where he made bad-taste cracks about the situation in the Ukraine, the child sex abuse commission and tobacco packaging, and the role of spin on them, before adding: “Of course the sickening and offensive attempt at humour above is in fact a test. If you found any of these punchlines remotely amusing I have some terrible news: You may be a public relations professional or even, shock horror, a journalist.”
This did not go down so well with one PR veteran, who accosted Joe in the dazzlingly shiny lifts at Sydney’s Doltone House Hyde Park to give him an ear bashing for “setting the journalist-PR relations back 30 years”.
Joe also made a few cracks about award recipients, and Vodafone’s Elise Davidson, who won In House PR professional of the year, quipping: “Anyone doing PR for Vodafone deserves an award.”
Dr Mumbo gathers she didn’t take too kindly to the joke giving Hildebrand the finger from the stage but scoring the applause and cheers of many of her peers in the audience in the process.
Touché.
Joe Who?
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must say i have to agree with the ‘oh god, not that old journo vs PR person chestnut’ response by many on the night. it’s really really boring and i don’t know anyone in PR who has the kind of confrontational relationships with journos that Joe seems to think is so rife.
Oh come on, we need to laugh at ourselves. It’s all bs, whichever ‘side’ you’re on.
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Being obnoxious is not wit.
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I think Joe is greatHe makes you laugh and is very witty.People need to chill out and have a bit of fun in their life instead of listening to the dogooders.
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