The annual EMMY awards are one of the highest honors in the entertainment industry.The awards are not only an award ceremony amongst peers, but can be a career-boosting platform for the nominees, and recipients. The event itself is televised, and featured in the press, making it a great opportunity to generate publicity for those nominated. Although many equate winning at the Emmys with hearing your name called and taking home a golden statuette, there is more than one way to win at the Emmys.
PR expert Ronn Torossian looks at three Emmy losers that actually won:
Bryan Cranston
Bryan Cranston, lead in the hit show “Breaking Bad” has won three Best Actor Emmys for his role as Walter White. But, in “Breaking Bad’s” final season, Cranston lost the honor to Jeff Daniels. This may seem like a disappointing way to end five seasons of work, but Cranston was not only able to celebrate a win for the show in the “Best Drama Series” category (a first for the show), but he received an abundance of beneficial publicity that will offer him a career boost that he can take with him into his future projects.
Since the Emmy nomination and the retirement of “Breaking Bad,” Cranston’s name has seen a surge of popularity on Google. According to Google Trends, interest in Bryan Cranston increased 400 percent since nominations were announced. In the months since the Emmys, his internet popularity has decreased slightly, but it is still much higher than it was during the run of “Breaking Bad.”
Kevin Spacey
When Netflix greenlit the first season of “House of Cards” without so much as a pilot episode, Kevin Spacey anticipated that a change in how television would be made would soon be on the horizon. The show’s first season, released all at once, in a unconventional move, garnered rave reviews, and a handful of primetime Emmy nominations. Becoming the first non-broadcast television series to win an award, “House of Cards” has altered the course of television history.
Kevin Spacey himself was nominated for a Best Actor Emmy, but lost. Regardless, he is a winner due to the fact that he is the first to be nominated in the best actor category for work done on a web-based series. The nominations, in and of themselves, are a huge step forward for the development of web-based series. He is being celebrated across the film and television industry for taking a big risk with Netflix, and it is paying off for his career in a big way. This unfettered publicity has increased Kevin Spacey’s already considerable clout in the entertainment industry.
Kerri Washington
One of the biggest controversies (or dare we say… Scandals) of the Emmys was Claire Danes’ win over Kerri Washington. Her role as Olivia Pope in the breakout hit “Scandal,”has been universally acclaimed as one of the best performances not only of her career, but of prime time history. Not only was her nomination guaranteed, it has historical significance as well. In the Emmys’ history, Washington is one of a few African American women to receive a nomination in the Best Female Actor category. The last woman to receive the honor was Diahann Carroll over 40 years ago for her role in “Julia.” It was virtually guaranteed that Washington would win the Emmy, becoming the first black woman to win the category, but Claire Danes won in an upset.
This has created a tidal wave of outcry on social media. Hashtags such as #KerriShouldHaveWon generated a worldwide conversation about Kerri Washington via Twitter and Facebook. Today, the show is more popular than ever. The viewership of Scandal has been higher than any of the proceeding season and it should be no surprise that the added viewership can be attributed to the extensive publicity afforded to the Kerri Washington Emmy snub.
