No Big Wins for Automotive Advertisers at Oscars
March 09, 2010
And the Oscar for the best advertising performance during the Academy Awards show 
goes to -- Hyundai.
But barely.
Indeed, Hyundai brand and, specifically, the Hyundai Sonata got the most lift from Sunday night's Academy Awards presentation, based on an analysis of shopping consideration by consumers visiting Edmunds.com.
However, though the viewing audience for the show was the biggest in five years, advertising on the Oscars proved not much of a win for automotive marketers.
In general, Edmunds.com saw little significant impact on shopping consideration from any of the automotive ads that aired on the Academy Awards. In fact, auto advertising performance on the show was pathetic compared with the Super Bowl.
Hyundai, which has been advertising big on big events like the Oscars and Super Bowl in recent years and doing well with its commericals, was the most prolific auto advertiser during the Oscars program. Still, despite those seven commercials, Hyundai saw relatively minimal increase in shopping consideration on Edmunds.com, specifically attributable to the Oscar ads.
The Hyundai brand saw a 7-percent lift in consideration on Sunday and 6-percent rise on Monday. The new Hyundai Sonata had a 37-percent rise in consideration on Sunday compared with the previous three Sundays. On Monday, Sonata saw a 53-percent hike in consideration. The Hyundai Genesis saw a 10-percent bump in traffic.
However, not all of Hyundai's rise can be attributed solely to the automaker's advertisements during the Oscars. Hyundai also is running campaigns on various sites, including Edmunds.com. Starting Monday, Hyundai ran its first ad for the Sonata on the homepage flipper of Edmunds.com, surely a contributing factor to its rise in consideration.
No Gold for Luxury Makes
BMW ran three of its new "Joy" advertisements during the Academy Awards but Edmunds.com saw no rise in BMW consideration on Sunday or Monday. BMW recently replaced its long-time "Ultimate Driving Machine" theme for the new "Joy" ads.
BMW's competitors fared no better. Toyota's Lexus ran its "Power of H" ad during the program, but neither the Lexus brand nor the Lexus Hybrid experienced any increase in shopping consideration on Edmunds.com
Same for Mercedes-Benz. Its S-Class hybrid posted only a 2-percent rise in traffic and the E-Class Coupe showing a scant 1-percent increase. Shopping consideration for the Acura ZDX was flat.
Toyota, GM: Oscar Losers
Toyota was the butt of Oscar jokes. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin bantered about a gift swap between ex-spouses James Cameron, director of Avatar, and Kathryn Bigelow, who later won the best director's award for Hurt Locker. Baldwin quipped that Bigelow sent Cameron a gift basket with a timer -- a reference to the roadside bombs of the Iraq war movie. Martin responded that Cameron sent Bigelow a Toyota.
Another ouch for Detroit came when nominees for the best short film were announced and clips from those films were shown. Among them was The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant. The film chronicled the shutdown of General Motors' Moraine, Ohio, plant where 2,400 workers made SUVs, including the Chevrolet TrailBlazer.
ABC Wins
The win was big for ABC, nonetheless. The Oscars were watched by more than 41.3 million viewer, its best performance since 2005 when Million Dollar Baby was the movie of the year. By comparison, this year's Super Bowl drew its biggest audience ever with 106 million viewers. - Michelle Krebs, Senior Analyst and Editor at Large
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 12:25 PM under Analysis , Featured , In the Media | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
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