Advertisers Bring On The Glam For The Oscars

Read more at: Forbes

Like the stars that will be walking the red carpet, advertisers are going all out for the Academy Awards.

Unilever’s Dove, J.C. Penney and online deals site LivingSocial.com are all launching new campaigns during ABC’s broadcast of the awards show, which is now in its 83rd year, this upcoming Sunday. The “trend” is a bit different from last year, when marketers, due to budget restraints, repurposed commercials that ran during the Super Bowl or from recent creative.

This year, however, Academy Awards advertisers are returning in full blast. So much so that commercial time for the network’s Feb. 27 live telecast of the event, commonly known as the Oscars, was completely “sold out,” per a release sent to media reporters last week.

That’s good news for ABC, marketers and consumers alike. For one, it meant the network was able to take its first major price hike in two years without (the majority of) advertisers grumbling. (A 30-second spot in the 2011 Academy Awards costs about $1.7 million.) Consumers, too, usually look forward to a good show, as advertisers, in good times past, have been known to break new creative. And, fresh off Super Bowl, marketers are hoping to attract many of the same eyeballs from this year’s live sporting event, which notched the biggest audience yet in television’s history.

At moment, the odds are in their favor. Academy Awards viewership was up 14 percent to 41.3 million last year, per Nielsen Co.