Media mastery, shagging secretaries and Dancing Without The Stars
To the Media Federation Awards, ably hosted by Seven’s Deal Or No Deal host Andrew O’Keefe and Dancing With The Stars’ Sonia Kruger, and organised on a theme of “mastery”.
O’Keefe told the audience: “It’s the first event I’ve been to all year that’s not Mad Men themed. I can’t tell you how goddam sick I am of dressing in gabardine and shagging voluptuous secretaries.”
And the pair weren’t afraid to put the boot into their network, with Kruger claiming that media without mastery was like Dancing without The Stars. To which O’Keefe added: “You mean series eleven.” That’d be the most recent series of the show.
Meanwhile, News Limited staff (or the “Murdoch creche” as O’Keefe described it) out-cheered their Fairfax rivals, leading O’Keefe to observe: “Whichever department governs extemporaneous explosions of joy was obviously first to go in the budget cuts.”
However, Dr Mumbo was puzzled why the audience laughed when O’Keefe referred to the presence of the “hard-hitting journalists of AdNews”. Even when he added: “They’ve got journalism degrees… one or two of them.”
But one of the odder moments of the night came when nobody from Starcom showed up to pick up their trophy. A pair from the agency showed up towards the end of the ceremony and was ushered onto the stage. They were slightly off mike, but appeared to be blaming Qantas, which seemed something of a bold move considering just about every media agency in the country is currently pitching for the media account.
There were two things that were relatively rare on the stage as winners trooped back and forth – men, and Australian accents.
As Sophie Price picked up one of Happy Soldiers’ many trophies, Kruger asked: “Are there no advertising jobs in England?” It would seem not.
Every sponsor, commercial and media partner had the proverbial taken out of them. And all the jibes got laughs. It was a good spirited affair with good hosts. Well done MFA.
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Agreed, Attendee. I think that was my fifth MFA Awards and I thought it went very well.
The theatre seating format for the awards worked as an experience as it helped hold the audience’s attention. (One or two rumbling from sponsors who didn’t get to spend as much quality time with their guests as a result of the new format).
But the real test of a good event is the quality of the mini burgers. And the mini burgers were excellent.
I didn’t get to the afterparty. Can anyone report back on how it was?
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
It was Sonia’s facial expression that got the audience laughing at during the ‘hard-hitting’ comment
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Great after party. THANKS APN I have a hangover from hell so it must have been good! Fantastic night all round. Congratulations to all the winners .
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