Now that Campaign has finally published its “Most Predictable Awards of the Year”, er, sorry I mean The Campaign Annual 2016, it’s time to unveil the gongs that everyone in our world has been waiting for: the Busty Balls Awards 2016.
While the Balls have had a slight tweak this year – girls are eligible too – I can’t quite match Campaign’s boast that “all our winners have proved themselves best of the best – and when the only certainty is uncertainty, these are the companies and people you want on your side”. But at least most of our winners have proved themselves good at something. And, there are only four awards to wade through, too.
Women of the Year: Victoria Fox and Nicky Bullard
As you may have gathered, I’m a big fan of the sisterhood, so it is only right that girls get to come first – in more ways than one – and there are no two girls more deserving of Balls than this duo.
At Lida, Foxy (as we like to call her) is going from strength to strength, bringing in the dashing Trefor Thomas as new creative chief and even promising me lunch at The Shard (not that that has anything to do with this award, you understand). Lida has also picked up Royal Mail MarketReach (my favourite Decision Marketing advertiser, of course).
Meanwhile, over at MRM Meteorite, Nicky “Booby” Bullard has built a very strong senior team and has achieved what many thought impossible by getting Chris Whitson to work for a woman. No mean feat in itself.
But, of course, the real reason they have scooped the award is that these sisters work like troopers in a male dominated world and love to paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarty, too! Go girls, go girls.
Man of the Year: Marco Scognamiglio
In a year when most fellas have done their utmost to make themselves look complete tossers – yes, you Alexei Orlov, Kevin Roberts, Robert Senior, Donald Trump, and Nigel Farage – it’s nice to see at least one good guy getting some recognition and I hope that Marco will treasure his Balls just as much as his new role as global boss of Rapp.
I must admit, I’m still a little in love with the Hawkins brothers from Verso (especially the man with the golden tongue) but with Marco, it is a true romance.
Former Rapp boss Orlov allegedly made references to multiple unnamed women as “fat cows”. But I know for a fact that Marco would never say such a thing – he’s been too well trained by his lovely wife. Double pizza soon, big boy?
Data Analytics Team of the Year: Pornhub
Now, dear readers, you may find this hard to believe but there are some weeks when I struggle to write this stuff. However, at the back of my addled brain I always know there is help at hand at everyone’s favourite adult site – and luckily I can go where most of your online blockers will not allow you to.
For instance, without Pornhub, how would we have known that searches for Donald Trump’s current wife, Melania, rocketed 1,538%, and former wife ‘Ivanka Trump’ were up 1,169%, and that daughter ‘Tiffany Trump’ trumped the lot by rising a staggering 2,548% following US Election Day? Or, that us girls are 167% more interested in “rough sex” and 105% more interested in “bondage” than you blokes. Keep it up, guys.
Marketing Magazine of the Year: Marketing Week (soon to be Marketing Month)
Now let me tell you, dear Busty fans, the competition has been tough this year. After all, Campaign – the only magazine which is thinner that its editor – swallowed up Marketing and Media Week to create “the super brand”. And in the words of its global supremo: “The iconic weekly Campaign magazine will be complemented by a new quarterly, which will take a deeper look at the consumer and industry trends that are shaping and inspiring the best new thinking.” Nice try.
But Marketing Week just pipped it to the post. From claiming there would be “a sea of black faces out there” at its awards, to confessing its online magazine had been shite for two years, our friends over at Centaur beat off all-comers this year. And, to cap if off, it also relaunched with the “same great content, [the] same great people bringing it to you”, is now planning on going monthly and has an Editor of the Year on board too. If that isn’t Big Balls, I don’t know what is.
Thank you and good night.
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