Douglas Coupland & Terry O’Reilly at The Bessies.
The Bessies were held in Toronto on Thursday, May 15th. I know, the name of this annual event is a bit ambiguous. “Bessies†is it about cows? Your great aunt? The Bessies is the Canadian ad industry’s top award show, put on by the Television Bureau of Canada, to honor the best in Canadian broadcast advertising. In past years, the Bessies has been an all day event, beginning at 11 in the morning and going to the wee hours. Which caused difficulties, as many were drunk by lunch and hung over by 5 p.m. This year, for the first time, it began with cocktails at 5:30 p.m. – much more civilized. It was at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel (lovely), where it was held in its inception, but has not been held there for many, many years since (so long that no one knew it was ever held there).
The Show began at 7 p.m. with guest speaker Douglas Coupland (author/pop-culture icon) being interviewed by Terry O’Reilly. (If you’ve never caught O’Reilly’s Age of Persuasion on CBC radio, I highly recommend it). I have a confession to make: Last year, Crush Toronto did a series of nine clips to promote Coupland’s latest novel, The Gum Thief, and I had a feeling that this campaign (view here: http://www.crushinc.com/gum_thief/) would win some awards. (It won a bronze pencil the week before at the One Show.) But when I heard that Coupland was speaking, I knew that they were definitely picking up some awards…why else would Coupland be there? Simple logic. So with this in mind, I sat myself close to Crush so I could see their reactions when they picked up an award or two.
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