It’s not about the 60 percent female viewership of the Oscars. Nor is it about exposure to the country’s second-largest television audience after the Super Bowl, approximately 40 million.
For advertisers on Sunday’s 79th annual Academy Awards, the big prize up for grabs was the potential to benefit from the telecast’s aura of elegance and glamour — one that made two beauty brands the most likely winners, according to Brand Keys, a specialist in consumer loyalty and engagement.
“The question is, ‘Are people going to be engaged?'” Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, said of commercials that air during an Oscar broadcast. “Elegance and glamour are the things that the [show’s environment] reinforce.”
That could help explain why the L’Oréal and Dove Cream Oil spots seen during last year’s Academy Awards evoked the most favorable responses, among those of 13 advertisers that planned to air spots again Sunday. The results came from a Brand Keys survey of 1,200 adults, ages 18 to 59, who were going to watch the Oscars Sunday.
Chances are the advertisers who raised the intent of these consumers to buy their products will also enjoy a positive result this year because of the nature of the venue, Passikoff predicted.
Such advertisers are a relative few, however, observed Jon Bond, co-chairman at Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners. “Advertisers have failed to make it clear to consumers their [environment] is sophisticated, stylish, upscale,” said Bond, whose agency introduced a Tab energy drink for women on last year’s Academy Awards. “The genre hasn’t been established.”
“There hasn’t been a 1984 yet,” he added, referring to the year Apple’s Super Bowl commercial introducing the Macintosh prompted advertisers to try to do “something special” during future Super Bowls. “There was an attempt to do it by Dove, but I don’t think they hit a home run. It was OK when someone [Doritos] did that on the Super Bowl last month, but it’s been done.”
The biggest challenge facing Oscar advertisers, said Robert J. Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, might be viewers’ sense that “the commercials are an invitation to leave the room, put kids to bed, lay out things for the next day. Perhaps Oscar advertisers have not made quite as concerted an effort as Super Bowl advertisers because they don’t think they can do it again a month later.”
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Responding to the public’s taste for creating media content, such as blogs and ads, Dove Cream Oil asked consumers to create the 2007 Oscar spot for its new body wash and gave them another chance to appear in an upcoming commercial. At the beginning of Dove’s Oscar commercial, “Grey’s Anatomy” actress Sara Ramirez credited Lindsay Miller of Sherman Oaks, Calif., for creating the winner, “Knowing You’re Beautiful,” chosen from among the “hundreds of entries.” (A video of Ramirez announcing the contest, posted by mnjes on YouTube Jan. 9 has drawn 3 million hits.) Miller’s spot focused on a woman showering, presumably with the body wash, and closed with the bather telling viewers: “Try Dove Cream Oil Body Wash ’cause what’s better than knowing you’re beautiful — even if no one is looking?” As the ad ended, Ramirez invited viewers to visit Dove’s Web site for a free sample and a chance to be in a new Dove body wash spot. It also posted “Knowing You’re Beautiful” at Dove.com and posted the ads created by the three finalists (including “Fly Like a Dove” and “Live in Color,”) at Oscar.com, prior to the awards telecast.
L’Oréal got sole billing as the Academy Awards sponsor at the program’s start, even as the placement of its brand logo and slogan, “Because you’re worth it,” appeared last in a string of advertiser names and catch phrases; a voice-over clued in viewers to L’Oréal’s status as the show’s sponsor. The others ranged from Cadillac to J.C. Penney, which launched its “Every Day Matters” commercial during the broadcast.
After seeing various Oscar spots that aired during last year’s awards ceremony, the people polled by Brand Keys in January were 15 percent more likely to buy L’Oréal products and 11 percent more likely to purchase Dove Cream Oil. An increase of 7 percent in likelihood to buy something is considered meaningful, a measure achieved by seven advertisers in last year’s telecast. They included Olay, which people were 10 percent more likely to purchase, and American Express, which had the same result.
Attempting to glean glamour or elegance from the Academy Awards when it is absent from the essence of a brand has not worked, which is why advertisers of beer and financial services have tended to fare poorly in the setting, Passikoff noted. Although it provides financial services, one reason American Express did well, he said, could be because “its DNA still has remnants of luxury. It’s high end. If you’re going to buy jewels from Bulgari, you’re more likely to pull out American Express than MasterCard.”