The Oscars to embrace social in $5.5m marketing push to combat Walking Dead and Downton Abbey clash
A leaked document has revealed that the Academy Awards is primed to spend $5.5m on marketing, with $500,000 reportedly set aside for social media promotions in a bid to emulate the success of Ellen DeGeneres' stint as presenter in 2014.
Neil Patrick Harris will host the Oscars 2015
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has renewed focus on publicising the 2015's event for its broadcast on ABC, as it will face tough competition from AMC’s Walking Dead and PBS’s Downton Abbey which also air that evening.
The network’s broadcast strategy, documented in a Haworth Marketing + Media report leaked to Hollywood Reporter also claimed that the marketing push will help overcome the fact that this year’s awards have “nominations focusing on art films rather than major blockbusters that have mass appeal”.
The report stated that broadcasters seek to emulate the 45 million viewers last year’s awards, presented by Ellen DeGeneres, received. It noted that DeGeneres’ plugs on her talkshow and Twitter to her 37.3 million followers played a big part of that success.
As a result, social media buy has been increased to $500,000 and $2.9m will be invested in cable TV ad slots in the days running up to the event.
The 2015 awards will be hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, who boasts 12.7m followers on Twitter and 1.2m on Instagram, on the 22 February.
The 2014 Academy Awards went down in history after DeGeneres welcomed Hollywood’s top stars into a selfie which became the most retweeted image on the social network.