46 Teams. 18 Agencies. Enter the Battleground. D-Light studios was the scene for the big agency showdown…Transforming this beautiful studio space into our tournament grounds for the night.
Some came to drink, some came to watch, some came to play, and some came to win (you could tell them apart because they had brought their own paddle!)
The tournament bracket was drawn up and round by round teams were eliminated. Some took it well. Some took it not so well. However, those that took it badly were ultimately rewarded by the Spinnies (from Spin 103.8) with a special spot prize (for biggest loser) because of their spectacular tantrum throwing!
There were some other spot prizes handed out especially for the dancing skills on show and of course the hotly contested competition for Best Team Name. There were some great entries and honourable mention must go to “That PONG Pah Pah Pah Pong” by Alan McQuaid and Andy Williams of Rothco as well as “Is this thing Pong?” by Aisling Clarke and Lisa O’Hanlon also from Rothco. Also, the ingenuity of using your team name to job search was something that could have been rewarded with the team of James Kelleher and Ben Flynn from Publicis titled “Ben is looking for a planning role in a Dublin Agency.” However, the winning one had to be “Neville Pongbottom - The Spin Off” by Alex O'Connor and Guilio Popplewell - PHD Media. Congrats to everyone on your fab team names.
As the night wore on, the lights grew dim… we decided to make it extra hard to see the Ping Pong balls this year. Challenge Mode! (But seriously we did turn the main lights on before the final!) As teams were knocked out some of the tables were used for more ‘creative’ means later in the night including some very good flip cup games.
Eventually, two hotly contested semi-finals saw Rohit Verma and Chris Flynn (Hit and Criss) from In the Company of Huskies and Juan Garcia and Huzaifa Shakir (The Isoballs) from Isobar lose out on a place in the final giving us our tense final match of Tim Kavanagh and Michael Rekab (Not Original Enough) from Publicis versus John Clancy and Conor McCooey (Ace Holes) of Carat!
Congrats to our two-time champions emerging victorious for the second year running. Who can stop them from going for the hat-trick in 2019? Everybody start practicing now…
In their victory speech they mentioned their unusual team name of “Not Original Enough” which was a result of them being the third team to ask to be called “Baby Got Backhand” before eventually deciding to go with “Not Original Enough” as they couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t taken. So, any suggestions for an original team name for Tim and Michael for their attempt to win a hat-trick next year are welcome – answers on a postcard please!
If you couldn’t be there, check out our video below to get a feel for it and maybe we’ll see you there next year.
We’d like to thank our sponsors one more time for their wonderful support of this event. Thanks to Media Central for all their backing, especially providing a great DJ from Spin 103.8, fabulous catering and a fantastic prize getaway to Farnham Estate. Thanks also to the other sponsors that provided products for the night including Red Bull, Cadburys, Hula Hoops, Archway Lager and Bulmers.
