In Los Angeles, awards season is longer than wildfire season. For your consideration billboards loom above Sunset Boulevard much of the year to remind the nearly 9,500 Oscar-voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—and the 20,000-plus voters in the Television Academy who weigh in on the Emmys—about a show or movie that came out eight months earlier.
The evidence that awards shows are approaching can now be found on more than just billboards. Over the past two decades, production studios such as Paramount, Universal, and Sony have shelled out for increasingly ostentatious campaigns: catered parties, even more billboards, mail promotions that can cost millions, and even bus-shelter ads to reach all four Academy voters who take public transit. Perhaps the most niche method of earning votes: the to-go-cup sleeves at Alfred Coffee. In the last few months, Alfred sleeves have hawked ads for several Amazon Prime original series, including Harlem, With Love, and The Pursuit of Love.
