Ratings
This year was the 88th annual Academy Awards, also knows as the Oscars. It’s a much-anticipated star-studded event that was put on by ABC. TVbythenumbers reported that the Oscars brought in a total of about 34.3 million viewers and had an L+3 for 18-49 years olds of 10.8.
They reported that during the opening ceremony from 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM there where 16.51 viewers were watching with an 18-49 demographic rating of 4.2 for a 13 share. From 8:30 PM to 11: 51 PM the rating went up. However, TVbythenumbers reports that these numbers are down 6% from last year. Last year the Oscars brought in 36.6 million viewers. Chris Rock was this years host, and the last ratings low was in 2008 when Jon Steward hosted, gaining 32 million viewers.
Although the Oscar ratings and viewers were down, the program still beat out all competition for the night. Variety reported that ABC nearly tripled its combined CBS-NBC-FOX competition, “while nearly quadrupling those networks in adults 18-49.”
Regardless of the ratings, Variety noted that the Oscars remains one of the top-rated “kudocasts” on television.
Social Media
This year’s Academy Awards was surrounded with controversy and protests about the lack of minority nominees. During all the pre-shows on the red carpet social media was buzzing with #Oscars (reported about 12.5 million uses) and #OscarsSoWhite. Right off the bat host Chris Rock mentioned the controversy in his opening monologue.
According to Nielsen, the Oscars was the number 1 most social program on Sunday with a total of 1.8 million people in the U.S sending one or more of the 7.2 million tweets. Nielsen said this beats out last year by 22% or 5.9 million tweets.
Before the award show began, tweets about #OscarsSoWhite has already started, bringing awareness to this issue. Variety reported that the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag had 431,000 tweets 3 weeks prior to the award show, but then took off the day of the event.
According to Nielsen the most tweeted about time of the night was at 11:56 p.m. when Leonardo Dicaprio won. At that moment 175,148 tweets were sent out. After the event social media was filled with memes, images, videos, and more of Leonardo Dicaprio‘s win. These posts continued a few days after the Oscars.
Leading up to the big day the Academy posted a lot of throwbacks on both Facebook and Twitter. The dayafter the award show they posted flashbacks of the event and talked about Laga Gaga’s performance that engaged the hashtag #ItsOnUs and more Leonardo moments. Throughout the event the Academy also used the live Facebook feed to show what was happening on the red carpet, backstage at the ceremony and after the event. Celebrities also posted sneak peeks of getting ready and red carpet looks.
Snapchat also had a story on the app that was called “The Oscars.” There was a live team that covered the event just for Snapchat.
ABC also live streamed the event for subscribers on ABC.com and the ABC app.
Marketing
Kohl’s replaced J.C Penney as the sole retail sponsor. Kohl’s made Oscar themed commercials that featured lip-synched versions of famous acceptance speeches.
The LA times reported that a 30 second spot during the Oscars goes for about $1 million. Coke bought time and at leading into commercials Cadillac had their logo thrown up as a sponsor.General Motors was the sole automobile sponsor of the event, and debuted new Cadillac ads during the Oscars.
The Academy sends screeners to voting members to get out word about the films. Actors/Actresses also made their rounds before the event on shows like Ellen, Tonight Show, Entertainment Tonight, etc.
Many have reported that Dove hit the marketing gold during the Oscars. They did a social media campaign to market their brand during the show with the hashtag #SpeakBeautiful. The mission was to combat negative tweets on Oscar night and replace them with positive ones. The marketing stategy gained them 51,000 tweets with that hashtag and over 46,000 responses. Dove reported that they contributed to a 62% decrease in negative beauty Tweets from last years Oscars.
Brands used the Oscars to get out its name. Gucci successfully used a social media marketing strategy to be the most talked about fashion brand during the award show. There was a massive social conversation during the event about the brand and then when Brie Larson won best actress and was wearing a Gucci dress this helped link the Oscars back to the Gucci brand. They capitalized on the viewers at the event and allowed them to dominate as a fashion brand. Out of Gucci, Givenchy, Dior, Tom Ford and Louis Vuitton, it was reported that Gucci took 44.9% of all social media posts. Gucci along with other brands also has celebrities take over their Snapchat/ Instagram accounts during the event. Jared Leto took over Gucci’s Snapchat account witch also caused a lot of social buzz.
I also noticed ABC doing some marketing for The Real O’Neals and The Family, which are both upcoming shows on ABC.