Arthur’s Day, the celebrations to mark 250 years of the Guinness brewery in Dublin, has won the supreme prize at this year’s Awards for Excellence in PR presented at a lunch in the Conrad Hotel yesterday. WHPR and a team headed by Sharon Murphy accepted the honour from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin.
The Mr Tayto book, The Man Inside the Jacket, won the €25,000-plus consumer category. Fleishman-Hillard won the consumer PR €12k-€25k award for Procter & Gamble Pampers Unicef campaign. Annie The Musical for Pat Egan Sound was the winner of the under €12k consumer category for Carmody Smith PR.
The 3 Irish Open claimed the sponsorship category for O’Herlihy Communications, while mobile rival, Meteor, won best corporate internal communications for its Meteorite Awards campaign. Carr Communications won the media relations award for the Mater Hospital Ball in aid of the Dublin Capuchin Day Centre.
The JCDecaux Dublin bike scheme, which RPS Mary Murphy Associates handled on behalf of Dublin City Council, won the public information award. Drury Communications was the winner of the corporate communications B2B award for McDonald’s ‘Putting its Chips on the Table’ campaign.
Fuzion Communications was rewarded in the public affairs section for the work it did for the Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland on the new dedicated unit at St Vincent’s Hospital. The Health Service Executive (HSE) won the public sector award for its national counselling service in coping with the Murphy Report.
BespokeWithDirection was rewarded for its Denny ‘Home Is’ work for Kerry Foods in the integrated category. Weber Shandwick’s Rushmere Uganda schools’ project won the corporate communications corporate responsibility prize while Gibney Communications took the charity category for Christmas FM.
Pembroke Communications and its client Crown Paints won the online category for its Sandtex ‘Ireland Deserves Sun’ campaign. Simpson Financial & Technology PR was named outstanding small consultancy.
News of this year’s top PR campaigns coincided with the release of a list of the latest PR graduates from the course at DIT Aungier Street. The students’ details are available online at http://www.prstudent.com/
Mr Tayto’s The Man Inside the Jacket was among the top PR campaigns in Ireland in the last year.
