Oscar Advertisers Need to Step it Up Online
There has been much discussion recently about whether this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, which airs this Sunday, March 5 on ABC, is going to be the advertising powerhouse of the past. Many have speculated that this year’s awards show will not draw as many viewers because the film nominees are not mainstream and therefore few films are being showcased that appeal to mass audiences. With films like “Capote,” “Transamerica,” “Brokeback Mountain,” and “Good Night, And Good Luck” up for awards, one wonders whether advertisers will get their bang for their buck. But what effects have the film nominees had on the online advertising environment as frantic fans attempt to predict who the winners and losers will be for 2006?
While many websites and blogs have made predictions and polled their users on their Oscar picks, MIVA, a performance marketing network, has made an effort to shed some light on how fans are using the Internet to gather information about their favorite Oscar prospects. The company has conducted analysis of over two billion web queries from across its network of partner sites. The data illustrates which actors, directors, and films from this year’s nominees received the most online searches during the past month.
MIVA’s predictions are based on search queries from across the United States and Europe and include leading websites, search engines, and directories. The results are as follows: for Actor in A Leading Role, Joaquin Pheonix achieved 47% of the search volumes compared to the 42% that Heath Ledger received. Charlize Theron beat out Reese Witherspoon (second place) and Keira Knightly (third place) with 63% of searches for Actress in a Leading Role. George Clooney received the most searches in the Best Director category for “Good Night, And Good Luck” with 71%. The searches in the Best Picture category were close with “Brokeback Mountain” garnering 37%, ahead of “Crash” at 32%, and “Munich” at 25%. “Brokeback Mountain” also swept up the most searches for Actor in a Supporting Role with Jake Gyllenhaal getting 57% of consumer searches. Finally, Rachel Weisz received 62% of search inquiries for Actress in a Supporting Role.
This online enthusiasm leads one to believe that advertisers should be spending their time and energy targeting web users instead of worrying about whether their TV spots will garner the wide reach that marketers have come to expect during the Awards show. If search giants Yahoo!, MSN, and Google were able to gather data and analysis similar to the information provided by MIVA, these companies could offer powerful ammunition to their advertisers about where their users search for Oscars information online. This data could lead to more targeted ad placement for certain top online Oscar destinations.
Putting the MIVA analysis aside, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ in conjunction with ABC.com has definitely put in the online effort with a sweepstakes promotion on the official Oscars website. The contest, sponsored by Entertainment Weekly and Netflix, allows fans to enter their Oscar picks daily to win an all-expense paid trip to the Academy Awards. ABC News also conducted a poll to rev up interest for the Awards and reported that out of a random national sample of 1,001 adults on February 22-26, 34 percent of people polled had no opinion when asked which film they chose to win Best Picture.
The news report explains, ” ‘Crash’ breaks through as the public’s top Oscar choice this year, but the real winner in a list of box-office laggards is no choice at all. That’s what happens when the nominees all rank 29th or lower on the year’s list for gross box office receipts: A lot of people just haven’t seen them.” The top grossing movie among nominees is “Brokeback Mountain” ranking only 29th for domestic ticket sales. ABC News’ website also offers a printable score card for viewers, videos of Oscar nominees before they were stars, photos of podium meltdowns, and video interviews with the stars.
What I question, though, is whether the advertisers on Oscars.com are reaching film fans and potential Oscar viewers. Although there seems to be some online cross-promotion between ABC.com and Oscars.com, other event-related websites and blogs such as Oscarwatch.com, Yahoo’s Oscar page and The New York Times’ offshoot site offer printable ballots, predictions, and contests to viewers that would also offer decent placement for online advertisers looking to target fans. The Oscars.com site is running ads for products such as Oil of Olay, Sony’s Bravia LCD TV (Sony Bravia sponsor of the Legacy section), nominee lists sponsored by AT&T (“delivered by AT&T” at the top of the list), Cadillac (sponsor for Oscar Night section), Kodak (a whole section devoted to the event location: Kodak Theater in Los Angeles), and South Beach Diet Foods from Kraft.
Despite the skepticism, ABC has sold out TV spots for the awards at the price of 1.7 million for a 30-second spot according to the New York Times. Some of this year’s advertisers include Coca-Cola, Miller Brewing Company (the exclusive beer sponsor), AT&T, American Express, McDonald’s, CareerBuilder.com, General Motors, and Eastman Kodak, and L’Oreal (sponsor since 2004). If these advertisers placed even half the emphasis on targeting the online traffic generated by the Academy Awards as they do on the coveted TV spots, they would reap the benefits of the targeting web-savvy Oscar fans.
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