Stuart Elliott: What Are Tarnished Oscars Worth to Advertisers?

Much more likely to be generating the agita among the advertisers is the recent controversy over diversity and the Oscars which has the potential to diminish the value of the Academy Awards for everyone concerned sponsors nominees the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the film industryIt39s funny that the Oscars long have served as a major marketing device to help sell movie going to the public because the controversy over the racial composition of the nominee rosters threatens to tarnish the awards in a way almost nothing else has in the decades the Academy has been bestowing them Well except maybe for quotDances with Wolvesquot being named Best Picture over quotGoodfellasquot And Alfred Hitchcock Cary Grant and Barbara Stanwyck never winning a competitive Oscar And Myrna Loy Fred MacMurray and Edward G Robinson never even being nominatedAnd well you get the picture Pardon the pun Even with hindsight being 2020 you can make a case that the Academy is particularly obtuse when it comes to honoring the best of cinema continually overlooking gems and rewarding mediocrity Still the response to the OscarSoWhite flap was especially hamhandedFor one thing the Academy39s scrambling to change its membership in the wake of these nominations says to a lot of people that there39s something wrong with the actors and actresses who actually were nominated So why bother to watch the broadcast Sunday if those nominees already have been found wanting There also are likely to be people who won39t watch because they39re unhappy there are no minority nominees and activists are calling for boycotts of the broadcast and organizing protests in Hollywood and at ABC stations in big marketsThe Academy39s reaction also suggests that its leaders no longer believe the sole standard for an Oscar nomination ought to be the quality of a performance If other criteria are to be added to the mix how will that affect the public39s perception of how prestigious and objective the award isThe Academy39s rule changes meant to increase the diversity of its membership may also mean that among the older members losing their Oscar voting rights are those who voted to give Sidney Poitier the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1964 Or those who voted to give Denzel Washington and Halle Berry their Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress in 2002 Or even those who voted to give three rappers the Oscar for Best Original Song for quotIt39s Hard Out Here for a Pimpquot from quotHustle and Flowquot in 2006amp160All the signals that there39s something subpar about the nominees for the 88th Academy Awards have put the advertisers on the hot seat quotOscars Ceremony in Crisisquot read a frontpage headline in Monday39s New York Times referring to an article that recounts how the show39s ratings were quotalready under siegequot even before the controversyIf there39s an honor for the moststressedout marketer it probably would be presented to Kohl39s which decided to replace JC Penney as the broadcast39s retail sponsor after 14 years Talk about timingKohl39s is using the hashtag AllTheGoodStuff in social media to promote its five commercials to appear during the show which Advertising Age describes as offering quota humorous take on the notion of an acceptance speech for everyday lifequot The hashtag might be the only quotgood stuffquot connected with this OscarcastJoining the advertisers among the ranks of the browwipers and handwringers is ABC which has a longterm contract with the Academy to broadcast the awards That the ceremony now may be damaged goods is a distressing distraction to a network that already was worrying over the ratings for Sunday39s broadcastFor the Super Bowl viewership is rarely affected by which teams are playing in the game But for the Oscars viewership typically rises and falls with the popularity of the movies nominated for Best Picture ABC brass must be fretting because the eight films vying for the top award this time are hardly blockbusters the biggest American grosser to date at 1651 million is quotThe Revenantquot quotStar Wars The Force Awakensquot at a whopping 9216 million was nominated for other awards but not Best PictureABC is trying to make lemonade out of the proverbial lemons One promotional commercial running on the network urges audiences to tune in for quotthe most unpredictable Oscars ever and Chris Rockquot Now that39s a pitch quotHey spend three and a half or four hours watching our master of ceremonies attack the very show he39s hostingquotWill it be better or worse if Rock39s barbs are viciously on target or if they land with a thud It39s a predicament Bob Hope or Billy Crystal never had to confrontPhoto courtesy of Corbis The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecom MyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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Stuart Elliott: What Are Tarnished Oscars Worth to Advertisers?

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