Here’s the transcript…

Marketing Award Night Nerves – a marketing poem by Brian Macreadie

It’s that time of year
Marketing award night
Celebrating the cream of the crop,
glory’s in sight

Teams have smashed their results
Each deserves recognition
Now all secretly crave
a lovely award that glistens

A room full of marketers
and their inspiring projects
This is the cherry on top
It’s time to collect

So we all don black tie
We’re all dressed to kill
Oh my, that lady’s feet are going
to die in those heels

There’s a buzz in the room
Conversations are lively
500 giddy people
all incredibly smiley

Surrounded by people
just like us
A room of peers and friends
full of tenacity and guts

We drink glasses of bubbles
soaked up by hearty food
A big awards dinner
starts to build the mood

And then dinner is over
Tension starts rising
We await the awards
for ABM and advertising

We receive a hearty welcome
A comedian regales us with jokes
We hear a rousing speech
that builds our hopes

Then that’s it
The ceremony begins
The foreplay is over
Now who will win?

There’s 28 other awards
before we get to ours
We’ll have to nervously wait
for over an hour

Best Content. Best Event.
Endless award categories
Watching others celebrate
before it gets to me

Let’s spare a quick thought to the
runners-up of award category one
Their long night is over
before it’s begun

With hours still left to go
their race is run
They clap their rivals
but their night is done

The rest of us go on
There’s glory for some.
But many others are
left feeling just a little bit glum.

Of course we applaud those that win
We’re all full of good grace
But maybe we should rehearsed
that certain Oscars face

Because the Truth is…
we covet that award
Following all our hard work
it would be just reward

We didn’t just come here
for a nice glass of gin
Being short-listed is great
but we all want to win

We’d love that piece of acrylic
That shiny gong
To prove to the world
our marketing was strong

Taking home a trophy
would fill our team with glee
(and let’s not kid ourselves
It’s not bad for our CVs)

But competition is so tough
We’re up against amazing entries
How on Earth will we
win against all of these?

Everyone in this room
worked their butts off all year
Each and every one of them
deserves a big cheer

People are more nervous
than they’d care to admit
Oh my this is tense!
Everyone wants to win it

So while we all play it cool
And all play it calm
But our hearts start to race
and we get nervous palms

Right, it’s our category next
It’s our fateful turn
The envelope is opened
Our tummies quietly churn

We’ve been here for hours
It’s a long time since dinner
Will we hear our name called?
Will we be the winner?

It’s the moment of truth
We await our news
The compere speaks
We….

Sh*t.

Oh well, there’s always next year.