Futurology II, With a Pinch of Recent Past

It’s that time of the year when the whole world holds its breath awaiting to know who will be the winner’s of the CIPR EXCELENCE awards this year.

Oscars, Golden Globes, Grammies, Brits, Razzies, and whichever prizes you may know of or dream about, are all hardly a match in the face and prestige of the CIPR EXCELENCE.  

Hanover was able to snatch one for the McCanns back in 2008.

Remember the proud words on their website:

"We helped the McCann family deal with the media storm which surrounded them on their return from Portugal in September 2007. 

From scratch, we created a comprehensive media handling package within six hours which enabled us to handle 850 media calls in the first week. 

By giving journalists positive stories to report, coverage turned from hostility to the McCanns to sympathy about their ordeal. 

This campaign won the crisis communication category at the 2008 CIPR awards." 

They won ONE category. Just a single one.

That certainly is not THE McCann style.

This year I propose that they should be nominated for 7 (SEVEN) out of 18 possible categories. As follows:

#6. Corporate Responsibility A campaign designed to support corporate values on community, social, ethical and reputation issues.

#7. Public Affairs A campaign designed to inform the public policy agenda or influence the legislative process.  

#13. Broadcast A campaign that effectively uses broadcast media to reach target audiences and achieve its objectives.  

#14. Global Public Relations A campaign covering more than one country, either based in the UK or originating overseas.

#15. Crisis Communications A campaign demonstrating how a crisis was successfully managed from a communications perspective.  

#18. Best Campaign over £10k A campaign that demonstrates the best use of a budget of over £10,000 to achieve its objectives.

Always willing to help the Holy Couple, I even propose the following wording for hanover to place on their site:  

"Once again we helped the McCann family deal with the media storm which surrounded them on their disastrous court appearance in Portugal in December 2009 to February 2010. 

Overburdened by a completely crippled in terms of reputation and image of the couple, we had to overcome the further aggravation of the situation due to the stupidity and f*ck-all knowledge of anything added with their f*cking know-it-all arrogance and of their acolytes. 

From this starting-point, we created an unimaginable comprehensive media handling package which enabled us to hand out bullsh*t like crazy and handle sh*tloads of media calls all this time. 

By “giving” journalists “positive” stories to print (or else…), coverage turned from something unbelievable to something totally surreal, for example, the Portuguese Police being the ONLY responsible for not reopening the case, thus winning to sympathy for the McCanns from those who really matter (this time, even for us, it was impossible to even try to reach the common public, but f*ck them, they matter little). 

This ordeal won us all the awards for which we were nominated for at the 2010 CIPR awards. F*ck, we f*cking deserved them!"
 

What? You counted only six categories? Sorry, saved the best for last:  

#8. Not-for-Profit A campaign based in the charitable and non-commercial sectors.