BOSSes, Anne Ganguzza and Tom Dheere dive into a lively and often debated topic for voiceover professionals: industry awards. Prompted by Anne's multiple Award nominations, they explore whether these accolades are simply vanity projects or powerful marketing tools. This episode delves into evolving perspectives on awards, the true meaning of a nomination, and practical strategies for leveraging any recognition to propel your voiceover business forward. They emphasize understanding the subjective nature of awards and how to use them for credibility, even beyond winning.

00:40 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with real boss, Tom Dheere. Woo-hoo, hi, Tom Dheere. I feel like there's pomp and circumstance for you, Tom Dheere, because it's that season again. Do you know what season it is? Deer season.

01:00 - Tom (Guest) Get it Tom Dheere, Deer season oh my God, that is really funny actually. That was terrible. It was not funny.

01:04 - Anne (Host) Well, okay, in addition to being deer season, right, it's award season. Woo-hoo, that's right it is award season. And I know there's always there's always always discussions about awards, and I've had discussions about awards before. I think we've probably talked about them before, but let's talk about them again, shall we? Because I think it's an ever-evolving thing and there are some people who are really for awards and some people who really detest awards.

01:32 - Tom (Guest) Yes, the reason why we're having this conversation, Anne, is because you got nominated for how many One Voice Awards.

01:41 - Anne (Host) Five why,thank you.

01:43 - Tom (Guest) Yes.

01:43 - Anne (Host) Why, thank you.

01:46 - Tom (Guest) I'm very excited about that. Wow, this is exciting and it's for all of the amazing work that you have gotten out of your students.

01:54 - Anne (Host) Yeah, for demos.

01:55 - Tom (Guest) That's amazing. Congratulations to you and all of your students. I'm very excited.

01:59 - Anne (Host) Yes, thank you, thank you. I like awards. I am one of those people that I actually endorse awards and I know some people think they're a vanity thing and in reality, for me it's always been about the marketing aspect. Tom, what are your thoughts?

02:15 - Tom (Guest) I used to be part of the anti-awards crew. I thought it was an exercise in vanity. I thought it was a money grab by the voiceover organizations that were hosting the awards, and my thoughts have evolved on the subject. Okay, I'd love to hear that. Well, I really do see now that it is truly a marketing tool and that is okay. All awards in all industries, from the Oscars all the way down to, you know, dog Catcher of the Year, these are all marketing. It's all about marketing. Is it about recognition? Yes. Is it a celebration of the industry in question? Yes. Is it to shine a spotlight on excellence, either from an individual or a group of individuals or a company, or whatever? Yes, is it to shine a spotlight on excellence either from an individual or a group of individuals or a company, or whatever? Yes, all of that is good and it should be supported. Is it an exercise of vanity? Yeah, sure, it's okay. There's nothing wrong with wanting to get dressed up and have people applaud you. There's nothing wrong with that, it's totally cool, it's totally cool.

03:22 - Anne (Host) Any excuse to get dressed up.

03:24 - Tom (Guest) Well, especially as voice actors who are stuck in closets in our pajamas all day,

03:27 - Anne (Host) Exactly exactly.

03:28 For me, it's always been marketing. First, because we have this whole conversation that awards are subjective. Right, I watch the awards, I watch the music awards, I watch the Emmys, the Oscars, I watch them all. Some people just they have so much to say about the awards, but honestly, I enjoy them if there's entertainment involved and I actually feel like it's wonderful when people get recognition that I feel deserve recognition. But of course, there's always the times where you're like I don't know how that person won or I don't know how that person didn't win, and so it is so very subjective and I think, first and foremost, we all need to remember that that is a fact. Right, it is very subjective and if you do not win an award, it has no bearing whatsoever on your worth or your quality at all, absolutely.

04:17 - Tom (Guest) It's interesting because the prism that most people look through all awards through is the Oscars. Right, and it's like Billy Crystal said it's an evening for three hours where millionaires are handing each other gold statues, which is pretty funny and accurate. But here's the thing I just realized about all this is that if you are a member of the Academy the Film Academy and you get your screeners, you know that Daniel Day-Lewis is up for best actor and you're watching the movie, or whatever excerpts of the movie that they sent you for you to cast your vote for him or somebody else.

04:50 - Anne (Host) Right or anybody else in any other category, or if you're not a voter right, you're a person going. Oh, hmm, somebody thinks that movie's credible, maybe I'll go see it. Guess what that resulted in Purchasing right, purchasing right, purchasing a ticket to go see that movie. So marketing, it worked, so marketing.

05:05 - Tom (Guest) But here's the interesting Anne that I just realized when it comes to the One Voice Awards which we both got, I got nominated for a little one, just one, yay, congratulations.

05:13 - Anne (Host) Tom Dheere.

05:13 - Tom (Guest) The commercial category.

05:14 - Anne (Host) Oh, that's right. That's right, Tom, that's awesome.

05:25 - Tom (Guest) So for your performance, but it's really nice. It's just being like, hey. But here's the thing about it is that when you submit, it's my understanding that when they listen to these demos that you help produce or these voiceovers that I did, they don't know who they're listening to.

05:41 - Anne (Host) Yeah, theoretically.

05:43 - Tom (Guest) So it's theoretically, I mean.

05:44 - Anne (Host) In a closed industry. Sometimes, like I know Tom De're listening to yeah, theoretically, so it's theoretically, I mean In a closed industry. Sometimes, like I know Tom Dheere voice.

05:48 - Tom (Guest) Well, that's exactly what I was about to say. I would like if there were three or four or five, if there were five people who were listening to these, I think that maybe two or three of them would probably be like that's Tom.

05:58 - Anne (Host) Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they don't talk to one another.

06:01 - Tom (Guest) But they don't talk to one other so it's generally anonymous and it's generally done in isolation.

06:06 - Anne (Host) I can say that for certain because I've been a judge prior.

06:09 - Tom (Guest) Right, oh, okay, so.

06:10 - Anne (Host) I can say for certain that it is closed and that you do not know who the entry is. You don't know who submitted it, right, and it's isolated.

06:18 - Tom (Guest) So for the five lovely voice actors whose demos were nominated that you produced. They didn't know who they were and they didn't know that necessarily that it was you that produced it. I mean, after a while, if you listen to enough demos, you can be like that's a Chuck Duran demo, that's a Nancy Wolfson demo because there's just like styles, there's styles you know what I mean, but for the most part they're not going to know who these voice actors are, who are nominated for any of these or for the demo.

06:43 So I think it's more of a pure. There's a level of purity in it that there isn't in the Oscars, for example.

06:48 - Anne (Host) Yeah, there's a combination for that particular category of not just the demo but the performance in the demo and hopefully, if you have created that demo and produced that demo, that has lent itself to a wonderful performance. And just being nominated, I want to say to anybody out there, just being nominated is a win. It doesn't matter, honestly, if I win, and I've been entering awards for years now. There's been many, many years where I didn't win and so I have to like always talk to myself and talk to my students to make sure that if I don't win it doesn't mean that I'm not worthy, it doesn't mean that that nomination wasn't really a win, because you can still believe it or not, you can market a nomination just like a win.

07:28 - Tom (Guest) Absolutely, and the Oscars— it sounds pretty darn similar. The Oscars do it all the time.

07:32 - Anne (Host) Mm-hmm. Award-nominated versus award-winning.

07:35 - Tom (Guest) Right. Did you ever watch the Secret Life of Walter Mitty?

07:38 - Anne (Host) That's the one that Ben Affleck wrote, and directed and starred in.

07:42 - Tom (Guest) I thought that movie was exceptional and I swore I was going to get all these nominations. It didn't get a one.

07:48 - Anne (Host) And.

07:49 - Tom (Guest) I don't know if it's because they didn't think it was off to snuff, if it was too past the deadline, or if they just chose not to submit it, because that's the other thing. We choose to submit ourselves for these awards. Now for actors in Broadway and television and film. They have their production companies or networks or whatever deciding to do these. Oh, we think these people have the best chance and they still have to pay submission fees as well, application fees for the nominations, just like any other nomination, which I think is-.

08:16 - Anne (Host) Well, there's a cost to running an award show. There's a cost to having people judge the awards. There's a cost for people's time, absolutely. So paying to ...

Who Cares About Awards?