On the 1st of December this year, we at Rose Media Group were thrilled to win a major industry award, one that makes all of our B2B PR efforts worthwhile. Being recognised by our peers is almost as good as being lauded by our clients, so when RMG were named winners in the Creative Industries category at the 2022 Sussex Business Awards, we all ended up smiling like the Cheshire Cat after a particularly big lottery win.
Aneela Rose makes her way to the stage at Sussex Business Awards 2022
There was a great deal of understandable euphoria at our table when Aneela Rose, our founder, shrieked in delight and made her way to the stage. Thankfully, she walked determinedly but also carefully, making sure there were no slips, trips or fall in the process. And although this may seem a somewhat trivial task compared to founding and managing an award-winning business – let me just say that again, an award-winning business – it’s worth noting that many previous award ceremonies around the world have been subject to the occasional disaster.
For example, back in 2013 Hollywood superstar Jennifer Lawrence took a tumble on her way to the stage to collect her Best Actress Oscar. Thankfully she recovered very quickly and even had the good sense to make a joke about it in her acceptance speech. Incidentally, the Oscar was for her performance in Silver Linings Playbook, not, as you might have thought, in Good Spill Hunting, Fall About Eve, Forrest Slump, West Slide Story or, dare I say it, Vertigo.
A particularly bizarre incident occurred at the 2002 Video Music Awards. The VMAs that year decided to present Michael Jackson with a cake to celebrate his 44th birthday, a very nice gesture because we all like cake, of course. Britney Spears introduced Michael on to the stage, saying that as far as she was concerned, he was her artist of the millennium. Michael promptly came out, grabbed one of the trophies from the table behind him and then gave an acceptance speech for his ‘Artist of the Millennium Award’. He thanked many, including God, his mum, Diana Ross and even magician David Blaine. By this time most of the audience were applauding politely and looking at their shoes. It was very surreal. If you don’t believe us, take a look on YouTube, but only if you like cringing.
Our very own homegrown disaster
But before you sneer too much at mishaps from across the pond, here in the UK we have our own candidate for the worst awards ceremony of all time. The 1989 Brit Awards was a full-on fiasco from start to finish, and for many of a certain age it will never be forgotten. There were so many things that went wrong – too many to mention, really – but the high (low) lights include the Four Tops being introduced only for Boy George to appear instead, various lead balloon jokes, autocue breakdowns and the producers forgetting to play a pre-recorded message from the aforementioned Michael Jackson.
As the chaos descended into even more chaos, it was left to the two non-presenter presenters, drummer Mick Fleetwood and singer Samantha Fox, to try to steady an already sinking ship. But even pairing them together seemed on the funny side, what with him being six feet five and her being five feet one. If you watch it back now, you can almost plot the exact moment when the pair of them basically just gave up. And who could blame them?
Back to the Academy Awards, though, for the ultimate mistake, the Everest of errors. The 2017 ceremony had been chugging along very nicely, the speeches were made, people were thanked and the celebs looked their finest. The most celebrated statuette, arguably the biggest of them all, was for Best Picture. Hollywood A-listers Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway opened the envelope and proclaimed La La Land to be the winner. Everyone whooped in delight and the cast and crew took to the stage to do their thing.
After a couple of short speeches, it was announced that a mistake had been made, and that Moonlight was the actual winner. This was a box of cringe wrapped up in cringe-coloured ribbons and with a big cringey bow on top. Since that auspicious evening, the organisers have changed their procedures to make sure it doesn’t happen. Presumably this means they’ve brought in several burly security people and half a dozen boffins so that envelopes don’t get switched around. Here at Rose Media Group, if we’d won an award and then been told it should have gone to someone else, we might have been tempted to make a dash for the exits and refuse to give it back.
Anyway, we hope you liked this award-winning PR Blog Post of the Year. It would not have been possible without the help of many influential people, so we’d like to thank Sir Richard Branson, Ed Sheeran, Julie Walters, Bill Oddie, Stormzy, Greta Thunberg and of course David Blaine. Thank you, Mr Blaine, thank you for the inspiration.
