Battle of the Blockbusters: 3 Movie Studios Were Among Last Week’s Top Spenders on New Creative

Another big change last week was the dethroning of the NBA Playoffs (two sweeps in the last round probably didn’t help). For four consecutive weeks, NBA Basketball took in more spending on broadcast placement for new creative than any other programming. But last week no one program truly dominated, with the 2017 Players Championship Golf Tournament edging out the competition by bringing in $4.1 million from sponsors the First Tee Organization ($2.5 million), Morgan Stanley ($1.4 million), PricewaterhouseCoopers ($0.1 million) and Optum ($0.1 million).

Last week, Samsung spent $4.7 million of its $8 million media placement spend on new creative promoting the Galaxy S8. This week, Samsung topped the list of  biggest spenders on placement for new national broadcast ads, devoting $7.1 million of its overall spend of $12.2 million (around 58 percent) to new creative.

Of that, Samsung has so far spent some $3.6 million total on a new ad for its Samsung FlexWash, $3.3 million of that on national broadcast placement. Licensing for the spot in question, “One machine. Two washers.” couldn’t have been cheap either, as the ad is set to the new Lady Gaga song “Another Day.” The spot ran primarily during dramas such as Scandal and Empire, with Samsung spending over $2 million on media placement during the latter for all new creative. In addition to the FlexWash campaign, Samsung also rolled out new spots for the Galaxy S8 and Samsung Gear VR.

20th Century Fox Pictures spent more on media placement for new creative last week than the other two movie studios making the list, devoting $5.2 million of its $9.4 million total spend (56 percent) on new trailers for Alien: Covenant, Snatched, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.

It marked a return to the list for the studio after topping it for the last week of April, primarily due to over $3.3 million spent promoting the aforementioned Snatched.

Over $1.5 million of the media placement spend went to a new trailer for the Ridley Scott-directed sci-fi blockbuster Alien: Covenant, ahead of its U.S. release this weekend. Snatched also got a $1.4 million push via a new trailer promoting it as the “Ultimate Summer Comedy.” The studio spent nearly as much promoting the June 2 release of Captain Underpants and $889,000 ahead of this weekend’s release of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.

Of the top five spenders on national broadcast placement for new creative, Warner Bros. Pictures spent the lowest percentage of its overall spend on new creative. The studio devoted just 41 percent of its national broadcast spend of nearly $8.8 million, a little less than $3.6 million, on new trailers for Wonder Woman, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Everything, Everything, The House and Dunkirk.

Of those movies, Warner Bros. spent the most on Wonder Woman, devoting $1.7 million to promoting the June 2 release of the DC Comics adaptation, although some question whether the film is getting a fair shake when compared to marketing campaigns for its other superhero movies.

The studio also devoted $1 million to the new trailer for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword ahead of its wide release on May 8, which couldn’t rescue the movie from underwhelming opening weekend box office numbers.

Of the three movie studios on the list, Walt Disney Pictures spent the highest percentage of its overall national broadcast placement budget on new creative, devoting 75 percent of its overall budget, just over $3 million, to new trailers for Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 and Cars 3. The studio spent almost $1.7 million of that on the latest sequel in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise ahead of its May 26 U.S. release, $1.2 million on the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel and $201,000 on Cars 3, which won’t hit theaters until June 16.

Macy’s spent a higher percentage of its overall national broadcast placement budget than any other brand on the list. The retailer devoted 87 percent of its overall budget of just over $3.1 million on placement for a spot promoting a sale ahead of Mother’s Day.