The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and broadcaster ABC Marketing Entertainment first launched the 2014 Oscars’ ‘Here We Go’ promotional campaign online in December with a trailer fronted by ceremony host Ellen DeGeneres.
The all-dancing/all-singing spot, directed by Paul Feig, fronted the ‘Here We Go’ campaign and rolled out nationwide on TV in early January as the property’s ‘Here We Go’ website went live.
The site also hosted ‘Making Of…’ interviews with DeGeneres,
and with director Feig,
as well as a ‘Behind-The-Scenes’ webfilm.
PR work, promotional photos and images and social strands also boosted the wider campaign.
This was followed by the main ABC telecast commercial rolling out in February,
plus PR and press executions.
Comment
The promotion seemed to play its role in attracting an audience of 43 million for the ceremony telecast – up 6% on last year’s number.
That made it the biggest Academy Awards audience for a decade (since 2004 when 43.6m watched Lord Of The Rings clean up).
The most watched Oscars ceremony of all was in 1998 when 55.3m saw Titanic scoop 11 awards was seen by 55.3 million viewers.
Advertisers will be pleased – although the audience increase didn’t quite match the the 10% rise in ad space on broadcaster ABC – the Walt Disney owned network upped the price in 2014 to $1.8m for 30-seconds (and sold out its inventory by the end of October 2013 – earlier than it ever had before).
Thus, the 86th Academy Awards Ceremony is both the most expensive awards ceremony for advertisers and the most expensive commercial property outside the NFL.
Last year’s Academy Awards telecast attracted more than 40 million US viewers, the largest TV audience for a non-sporting event, and generated around $90m in ad revenue.
Between 2009 and 13, the top five spending Oscars advertisers were Hyundai, Coca-Cola, American Express, J. C. Penney and Samsung.
Hyundai topped last year’s spend table with a $56.6m total investment over that period ($12m spent last year alone) and Coca-Cola coming in third with an $8.5m commitment.
Yet neither brand will walk the red carpet this year – both deciding to pull out.
Yet both exclusive categories were quickly snapped up – with General Motors assuming the exclusive automaker position and Pepsi reclaimed the non-alcoholic beverage sponsorship with its first Oscars appearance since 2005.
The other three biggest spenders from last year all continued to invest significant sums in 2014.
Indeed, this year’s Oscars marked the 22nd straight appearance in a row for American Express (only beaten by McDonald’s 23 consecutive years).
Property owner, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, generates around 90% of its annual income from the event and renewed its deal with broadcaster ABC three years ago and the network will keep the awards telecast until at least 2020.
In fact, ABC has shown The Oscars every year since 1976.
Both the long term broadcaster and advertiser relationships showing that The Academy Awards is one Tinseltown platform that bucks the Hollywood rule against long relationships.
‘It has been a very healthy marketplace for the Academy Awards this year,’ said ABC sales president Geri Wang. ‘There are so few marquee opportunities out there for advertisers, and the Academy Awards are truly special.’
As well as being a live, almost DVR-proof show, a key draw for Oscars’ advertisers is that the ceremony’s TV audience traditionally skews strongly towards affluent, educated and female viewers (women make up more than 60% of the viewers).
Another contemporary marketing driver is the younger cohort driving social media traffic surrounding the awards. Indeed, last year saw 14 million Academy Awards related comments across social platforms (a threefold increase on 2012).
These consisted of 8.9 million tweets – including 2.1 million during the red carpet pre-show coverage.
‘The Academy Awards transcends traditional media,’ adds ABC’s Wang. ‘The show lends itself so well to social media, which gives us — and advertisers — a real opportunity to reach people on second screens.’
This will be further boosted in 2014 by ceremony host Ellen DeGeneres – who is one of America’s most popular social media celebrities with 25 million personal Twitter followers.
‘Social media has had a pretty large impact,’ says Steve Parker, CEO of digital marketing firm Levelwing. ‘It’s not surprising that ad rates and TV viewership are going up because more consumers want to engage with one another as well as with the event itself.’
Broadcaster ABC also sells ads on the rights owner’s www.Oscars.com website and the companion application for mobile devices.
Furthermore, ABC runs live streams in eight markets, including Los Angeles, for subscribers of Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-verse, Charter Communications and Cox Communications.
Links
‘Here We Go’ Oscars Website
http://www.oscars.org/herewego/
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Website
