Ben Dunne was last night celebrating his new title of King of Irish Advertising having scooped top prize at the National Radio Advertising Awards.

The ceremony is held every year to acknowledge the best in radio advertising and for producers, recording studio employees, voice over artists and advertising industry folks to get pissed, tell each how great they are before going off and bitching about how Mario Rosenstock ‘…isn’t all that anyway. I mean he could never do a film trailer, his voice is just too reedy’.

Ben Dunne was a knockout with his sophisticated voiceovers

The big winner of the night was Ben Dunne who scooped the much coveted Coke-Spoon D’or for overall Best Ad or Ad series. Chairman of the Irish National Radio Advertising Awards board, Lorcan Nugent-McCann, said “There really was no contest this year. Who could not have been moved by Ben’s mellifluous delivery as he weaved a magical web of words to tell us how much cheaper it was to join one of his gyms that have a cappuccino in Dunnes Stores? How could any right minded person resist the velvet intonation as he beseeched us to buy our art from the Nora Dunne gallery? That one, I have to admit, put me in mind of a young Brian Sewell crossed with latter-day Donald Sinden”.

“Those alone would have won him the prize”, he continued whilst alerting a Windmill Lane sound engineer to some powdered residue around his left nostril, “but then came the cream on the top of the already scrumptious cake … Ben Dunne dot com. I liken it to a footballer who has gone around the keeper, then stopped the ball on the goal line before kneeling down and heading it in off the ground. Pure class.  It was a stroke of advertising genius. Only Ben and his lyrical vocalisations could have persuaded people to spend money on something that so many others continue to do for free. He is a man ahead of his time. I’m always aware that advertising people are the best people in the world but I don’t know how we’re going to top this”.

Ben Dunne also won the top prize in the controversial ‘When are we going to tell people to use a voice-over guy instead and stop doing their own ads? Without the repeat fees I can’t pay my mortgage’, category beating off stiff competition from Rory of Elephant Self Storage.

There were also gongs for Wardrobe Elegance in the ‘Most pitifully annoying jingle category’, leaving hot favourites Garmin weeping and swearing revenge for next Christmas, ‘Black and Yellow’ for most memorable ad that nobody can ever remember the product for’ and National Radio cabs for ‘Chip and Pin’ in the ‘Most hackneyed stereotype’ section.

The party went on till dawn, lots of people had sex with people they shouldn’t have, and up to three septums were completely burnt through. Just another normal day in advertising.