Selfies, Pizza and Promoting Brands at the Oscars

IN recent years, it appeared that the Academy Awards was becoming increasingly desirable as a marketing platform, perhaps even approaching the biggest day of the year for advertising, the Super Bowl. After the Oscars broadcast on ABC on Sunday night, that now seems self-evident — or should that be selfie-evident?

The reference is, of course, to a moment during the show around 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time when the host, Ellen DeGeneres, used a smartphone to take a self-portrait with a galaxy of stars and post it to her Twitter account. The photograph quickly broke the record for a retweeted post and generated considerable publicity.

It did not go unnoticed that Ms. DeGeneres used for her selfie a smartphone made by Samsung, a major sponsor of the Academy Awards. The company also bought more than five minutes of commercial time during the broadcast, promoting products like TV sets and tablets in addition to smartphones. The integration of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 into the show itself offered another example of why marketers have become so fond of programming like the Oscars and the Super Bowl. They are live shows that tens of millions of viewers deem each year as must-watch television, and they provide numerous alternative ways to engage with consumers beyond traditional commercials. And after all, many perceive the Academy Awards broadcast to be a big commercial for the movie business.

Product integrations, also known as content marketing or branded entertainment, are not without their pitfalls. For example, a subsequent post on Twitter, describing how Ms. DeGeneres used an iPhone rather than the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 to take selfies backstage at the Dolby Theater, received widespread attention. And during the pizza delivery stunt engineered by Ms. DeGeneres, there were two brand logos clearly visible on the boxes delivered to the theater: Big Mama’s & Papa’s Pizzeria and Coca-Cola. What could be wrong with that when, as signs in pizza shops once proclaimed, “Nothing beats a Coke and pizza”? Well, Pepsi-Cola took over exclusive soft-drink sponsorship of the Oscars this year from Coca-Cola, and ran a commercial for Pepsi in minicans about 30 minutes after the appearance of the plug for the archrival brand on the pizza boxes.

PepsiCo has brought up the matter with ABC, according to a post on the website adage.com, while a Coca-Cola spokeswoman expressed how “surprised and delighted” her company was to see Big Mama’s & Papa’s, a longtime Coke customer, in the show. There was some consolation for Pepsi, though: the minican commercial performed well in post-broadcast analyses of ad performance by companies like iSpotTV, Poptip and TiVo.

What follows is an assessment of some of the 50 or so commercials and ABC promotions that viewers saw during the national portions of the Oscars show.