Back when Johnny Carson emceed the Academy Awards ceremony, his monologue one year opened with the following greeting: "Welcome to the Oscars, the show that packs 75 minutes of pure entertainment into three and a half hours." The Carson quip still holds true today, except the latest Oscar telecast reached a record long, four-plus hours. TV critics generally assessed the ’99 show to be lackluster and unfortunately there was a crop of ads to match, according to those agency creatives informally polled by SHOOT.
Anticipation ran high in the ad community going into this year’s Academy Awards. For the first time, the show was being telecast on Sunday night, a piece of scheduling that figured to draw a larger audience than the Monday night Oscar norm. And the Sunday run drew inevitable comparisons to advertising’s champion Super Sunday, the Super Bowl. In fact, as earlier reported (SHOOT, 3/12, p. 1), Super Bowl mainstay Pepsi actually held back its major campaign thrust from the Big Game in order to make a splash during the Academy Awards, an event better timed to the cola maker’s upcoming summer selling season.
ABC-TV sold 30 seconds of ad time for an average of $1 million, and indeed the Oscar telecast delivered healthy audience numbers. ABC estimated that 78 million people watched at least a portion of the broadcast. Still, preliminary results from Nielsen Media Research were that viewership dropped 17% as compared to last year when the Oscar ceremony sailed to its biggest ratings in more than a decade on the wave of interest created by best picture winner Titanic. In the big picture, though, the ’99audience levels represent a significant improvement over ’97, more in line with strong showings from ’92 to ’96.
Ironically, the parallel to Super Sunday that proved true was audience drop-off as the evening wore on. Akin to a blowout football game where the outcome is decided before halftime, the Oscar’s overall ratings dropped considerably from the program’s peak to the final half-hour. This decline is all the more remarkable when you consider the fact that the show’s climax-the announcement of winners in such high-profile categories as best director and best picture-came in that final 30 minutes. But on the East Coast, the telecast ran until 12:30 a.m., with slumber taking precedence over the need to find out the contents of those sealed envelopes.
Here’s a sampling of the ad folk surveyed and their assessments of Oscars ’99:
Paul Cappelli, president,
The Ad Store, New York.
I liked the country western GAP spot [directed by McG of A Band Apart Commercials, bicoastal and Minneapolis, for GAP Advertising, San Francisco]. It was like a Broadway review. It was original and well executed. … The GAP should have produced the musical numbers of the Academy Awards."
I liked one of the Pepsi spots [directed by Joe Pytka of PYTKA for BBDO New York], where [the little girl] puts on the voice of the Godfather. … I don’t like most of those commercials. There’s something about the little girl that I just don’t like. Most of the voices [lip-syncing] weren’t done well. You want to feel like the voice is coming from her, but it feels like an overdub.
The American Express stuff stood out because I had seen it before ["London," "Gas Station" and "Rags To Riches" directed by David Kellogg of bicoastal/ international Propaganda Films, and the newest Seinfeld spot, "Drug Store" helmed by Rob Pritts of Backyard Productions, Santa Monica and Chicago, for Ogilvy & Mather, New York]. Don’t they have anything new? … A lot of the sponsors used old commercials.
Jef Loeb, chairman/co-crea-
tive director, Katsin/Loeb
Advertising, San Francisco.
The Academy Awards themselves are the world’s longest infomercial, so in that context you have to look at everything as having a commercial intent.
I don’t think yet that the Academy Awards, even now on Sunday, are a star vehicle for the launch of a campaign. It’s more like a star vehicle for the stars to thank everyone down to their pet poodles. Overall, I thought the spots were all fine. The level of expectation was not what they are in the Super Bowl, so you don’t sit there with quite the same critical eye. That notwithstanding, I wasn’t blown away by anything. The most interesting play of the game from my perspective was from Pepsi. What was interesting wasn’t so much the execution as the line "Joy of Cola." Because when you think of the word ‘cola,’ Pepsi generally isn’t what comes into your head, it’s Coca-Cola. I think they’re trying-and I don’t know how well they’ll do at it-to outflank the category and set themselves up as pre-eminent. That’s one of those things where you take a shot at it if you can. The only bad part of that is that I thought the third of the series with the little girl as the Godfather was the funniest, and by then I’m sure half the East Coast had signed off and gone to bed.
Sears [Ogilvy & Mather, Chicago] and Revlon [Tarlow Advertising, New York] were a couple of the others that seemed to be saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to a women’s audience, let’s try to hit the mainstream message.’ If you’re trying to hit home runs in a format where half of America’s watching, I think you have to be ballsier than that.
Lincoln, they’ve been running that a long time. You know how many "should be" tag lines there are in the world?
I thought for Victoria’s Secret, it was nice to see a striptease on prime time Sunday night when all the kids are watching. Merrill Lynch [directed by Andrew Douglas of bicoastal/international Satellite for J. Walter Thompson, New York] was interesting. First of all, it was nicely done. But does the premise that the world is 10 years old because the Berlin Wall came down 10 years ago, ‘Now go get ’em kid,’ does that sustain itself as a believable proposition? I didn’t find it off point because in a sense money is what makes the world go round. But I think they basically are trying to carve out an empowerment message which is fine. I think it has to be a more fresh and original approach. If you’re going to use metaphors like that, they have to be ones that instantly get my head nodding.
There were three advertisers who I thought tried to take advantage of the proximity to the Oscars. Chevrolet did, Blockbuster tried fairly lamely in a couple of spots. I thought the only one that kind of came close to pulling it off was Kodak [Ogilvy & Mather, New York], when they said most of the great movies had the same ending [a stock footage piece entitled "Same Ending"; other Kodak ads were "Kids Age" directed by Jeff Preiss of bicoastal Epoch Films, and "Honeymoon" helmed by Mark Coppos of bicoastal Coppos Films].
[Generally] advertisers are being conservative when there’s big money and big numbers on the line. They were really charging $1 million for a :30 on this thing? Unbelievable. So it says to me that there’s a little too much ‘Let’s follow the numbers’ instead of listening to the gut. I think it’s conservatism dominant in a situation where the exposure is so great. My general impression was that these were bigger spenders overall. There wasn’t anybody rolling the dice and saying ‘Let’s get ourselves on the map.’ [In the absence of smaller advertisers]…generally, you’re not going to see those kinds of things. I’m sure Revlon walked away perfectly satisfied that they accomplished their objective.
I liked the GAP work [additional spots were "Khaki Soul" directed by Hype Williams via bicoastal HSI Productions, and "Khaki A-Go-Go" helmed by Mike Mills of The Directors Bureau, Hollywood], but I think they’ve done that [already]. That’s the whole thing. If you’re going to do something that sets up an event like this as a star vehicle for the launch of a new campaign, a couple of things have to happen. The vehicle itself has to be universal and I don’t think the Academy Awards have come to that. Secondly, somebody has to do it. There’s got to be an Apple computer that goes on and reshapes the venue and says this is a venue where you can rock the world. Thirdly, and this is maybe unfortunate and maybe not, but there has to be a level of expectation about what’s going to appear on that broadcast relative to the advertising. That elevates the standards. It makes it harder to win but it makes it much harder to lose too. So the Academy Awards as a vehicle right now, I don’t think they’re in that zone. That’s not to say it can’t happen. Who knows? Maybe next year they’ll be the one to do it.
Kirk Souder, creative partner, Ground Zero, Marina del Rey, Calif.
Overall, the quality of [Oscar] commercials [was] not very good. I was kind of surprised that there weren’t more ‘special occasion’ commercials that really took advantage of the event. There were only one or two highlights, I thought, in the whole thing. There was a Merrill Lynch spot that I liked where it used the metaphor of a 10-year-old girl for the current global financial world. I thought that was pretty nice. For a company like Merrill Lynch to rely that strongly on metaphor was great, [and] I thought it was really wonderfully done.
It gave you a new perspective on things, and made the [people in the] room I was in kind of stop and look for awhile and try and figure out what was going on and enjoy it. It’s always good to see that. You’d expect to see that from Nike or someone like that, but then to see ‘Merrill Lynch’ come up at the end of it was really refreshing.
On the other end was a spot for Chevrolet [largely stock footage for Campbell Ewald, Detroit] that was the most incredible :60 of borrowed interest I think I’ve ever seen. At the end they tried to save it with a line which was something to the effect of, ‘We’ve come a long way, who knows where we’re going, but we’ve got a car to take you there.’ It showed everything, images from Martin Luther King to Jackie Robinson to Jimi Hendrix to Woodstock. I kept thinking that here is a brand that when any of those events would’ve happened, that’s the last place they’d want to be. But because of history and so on, now all of a sudden, they’re showing a bunch of images which really have nothing to do with their car. Absolutely nothing to do with their car.
There’s a connection, for instance, when Apple picks up Muhammad Ali [for their advertising]. There’s a connection in that you’ve got a brand that is a metaphor for taking on the system, and you’ve got celebrities or known personalities who are known for taking on the system. In this case, it was just a plethora of, ‘Well, here’s all the touchy/ feel-good imagery of the last 30 years, let’s just stick our logo on at the end of it.’ I thought it was just shameful.
I thought the Pepsi spot with the girl was entertaining but I thought it was very formulaic: Develop a funny little story, stick a celebrity or two in it, call it a day. Kind of like a big-agency format. I didn’t really get any strong positioning statement for Pepsi out of that. I guess they’re introducing their new line, ‘The Joy of Cola,’ which I’m not sure I understand.
I thought [the GAP spots] were executed pretty interestingly, but I don’t think there’s a big idea there … From an idea standpoint, there really isn’t anything there [other than] a bunch of people dancing. I guess it falls under the category of fashion advertising, but I know there’s been fashion advertising that uses ideas, so I’m not sure if that’s really an excuse anymore.
There’s the usual ongoing trend of effects-as-idea. I saw a lot of [spots with] CGI and so on, but no idea to them. I think people these days are confusing the idea of aperture control or CGI with a concept, when they’re not; they’re just executional means to an end. I’ll be glad when that trend’s over.
I recall seeing more work in previous years that felt like it was a part of the celebration. What the Super Bowl does is you get the feeling that people are creating advertising particularly for a showcase on this event. I didn’t get that feeling so much from [Oscar] night. I got the feeling that [people were thinking], ‘OK, we’ve got :60, let’s just fill the slot.’ …. You would expect [advertisers] would do the same thing for the Academy Awards [as for the Super Bowl, i.e., create new ads just for the event], especially being how much money those brands have to create something that still hearkens to their soul and their positioning but finds a way through the context of the Academy Awards to express that to people. But it just didn’t happen.
The [Blockbuster Video spot] felt really close to me, I wish it would have gone on a little longer. I wish it would have had a :60 of just a bunch of people describing a moment in one of their [favorite] movies, a moment we’re all familiar with. It had the potential to be that to me, if it went on a little longer, had a little bit more people describing this moment in a movie that we all hold as an emotional, wonderful moment. I think it was a really good stab at it. It really showed how important movies are to us. That’s probably an example of one [spot] that comes close to taking in the context of the Academy Awards. I wish it would have gone on a little longer and somehow be summarized a little stronger at the end. But I thought that was a really good, strong swing at something cool. In the context of all the slickness that everything else was, just to have these real people shot very real and un-finessed, describing the pinnacle moments of the movie-I thought that was great."
Dennis Ryan, exec. creative director, J. Walter Thompson, Chicago
Man, what a major disappointment that was. I just thought the Academy Award show advertising would be a lot closer to the standard that’s become the Super Bowl, but it definitely wasn’t. It all seemed to be retreads. It was nice to see the Jerry Seinfeld American Express work again, but the others just seemed like regular ads. Halle Berry is one of the most beautiful women on the face of the planet, but if all you’re going to do is put her on a white set and have her go skipping through a bunch of oversize makeup tools …. you know, if I wanted to see a print ad, I’d open a Vogue.
The new Pepsi jingle, I thought, was pretty good although I must say I don’t find that little girl the most darling thing on earth. There were a couple more GAP spots that did a nice job; some of the Merrill Lynch stuff was pretty interesting. Actually, only Blockbuster and Kodak seemed to do Academy Award-themed ads, and I thought Blockbuster’s was really good. Unfortunately, they ran it twice and since there were just people telling stories about their favorite movies, you’d think they could have done two versions of it.
I just thought the whole experience [of Oscar advertising] would be further along the development path. It makes sense for a lot of beer advertisers-it certainly makes sense for Pepsi to start investing in the thing. I guess the real problem is, as much as everyone makes jokes about it, it’s just too long and too boring a show to make it really worth watching. My God, when Gwyneth Paltrow started breaking down, I was pretty much headed for the exit at that point. I was very interested to know who’d get best director and best picture but it almost wasn’t worth it.
A SHOOT STAFF REPORT
