ABC announced that the top three sponsors of the Oscars from last year are back; Hyundai, the exclusive automotive sponsor for the fourth consecutive year (Hyundai also became The Recording Academy's automotive sponsor for this years's GRAMMY's), along with JC Penney and Coca-Cola.
In addition, American Express, AT&T, Kraft, McDonald's, MetLife, Paramount Pictures, Samsung, Sprint, Stella-Artois, Travelocity and Disney are in as this year's advertisers of the Academy Awards telecast. Amazon and Best Buy are out as sponsors.
After Super Bowl, the Oscar telecast represent the most expensive network TV commercials. However, whereas a typical primetime show contains 16 minutes of commercials, The Academy limits the commercial time to eight to 10 minutes per hour, including ABC show promos. This is ABC's 37th year of broadcasting the show live.
TV is not the only sponsorship venue obviously; sponsors are all over the opportunities throughout the week preceding the awards, some with charity tie-ins. Oscar week means parties, luncheons, receptions, more parties, an afterparty and then an even harder-to-get-into afterparty.
One brand who will also not be among the Oscar 'elite' is Kodak, which ended its sponsorship deal with the venue it was named after. The move symbolizes Kodak’s (and Kodak film's) fading star power in Hollywood. Although seven of the "Best Picture" nominees were shot on Kodak film, about half of the world’s commercial screens now show movies from digital projectors, and by some estimates, film reels will soon be a thing of the past. As I've alluded to a while back, "brands who don’t transition, and don’t see 'it' coming, almost always fail…"
Then there's the question of whether the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the organizers of the Oscars, will want to leave 'Kodak' theater after this year (Nokia Theatre is rumored). One thing for sure: The magnitude of the $ spent on a new naming deal will definitely depend on it.
