One notable absence from the Oscar’s were real-time marketing moves from brands. Crimson Hexagon, a social media analytics firm, has some takeaways. When Justin Bieber has the most retweets, you know something it up.
Good luck to everyone tonight. Thanks for all the great movies. #Oscars
— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) February 23, 2015
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There weren’t many commercials with hashtags, according to John Donnelly, SVP of global sales and marketing:
Few brands used hashtags in their Oscars commercials this year. Dove did; its #SpeakBeautiful campaign was mentioned 36,450 times on February 22 and its Twitter handle received 22,384 mentions. So did Academy Award sponsor American Express, whose #JourneyNeverStops hashtag was mentioned 6,543 times and Twitter handle was mentioned 4,578 times. Also an Academy Award sponsor, Cadillac opted not to hashtag its “Dare Greatly” tagline during its Oscars spots (though it has for other commercials); Cadillac’s Twitter handle was mentioned 2,114 times on February 22.
And no social-only campaigns. Only Butterfinger’s #CupsAwards was making its way around Twitter, with 8,954 mentions. Out of around 4,948,096 tweets using the #Oscars or #Oscars2015, not one brand made it to the top ten of most circulated tweets or was mentioned in the most popular Twitter handles of the evening. Donnelly says that:
Looking at the top ten hashtags used in #Oscars tweets, brands’ campaigns were notably absent. However, the #AskHerMore campaign, made popular on Oscar night by Reese Witherspoon, did make the cut. The opportunity here for brands is to look at what messages are gaining traction and figure out how to join those movements in authentic ways.
So what gives? While real-time marketing was ho-hum, many brands did have pre-planned Oscar themed tweets. Some were even amusing. It’s safer (and smarter)to plan ahead as you avoid gaffes or seeming goofy. But it’s certainly more fun when you wing it.