Academy Awards contenders heavily marketed by studios
Oscar-seeking tactics include aggressive ad campaigns, late movie releases
The 87th Academy Awards will be handed out this weekend, but the journey to the Oscars begins long before the red carpet is rolled out.
Boyhood is one of the best-picture nominees, but of this year’s eight contenders, only Boyhood and two other films were released before November 2014.
In fact, over the past decade and a half, 56 per cent of best-picture nominees were released in November or December, a deliberate strategy by studios to ensure their movies are fresh in the minds of academy members when voting takes place.
The studio behind Interstellar released a “For your consideration” trailer in December that listed the 14 Oscar categories it wanted nominations for. Such marketing may have helped the movie secure the five nominations it ended up with.
You see, that’s how Oscars are won these days. Studios manipulate release dates, post advocacy videos, give academy members special screenings and run endless “For your consideration” ads on billboards, in trade publications and on YouTube.
That video ran in 2013 when Anne Hathaway was nominated for best supporting actress in Les Miserables. Even though it turned out to be a hilarious spoof, it didn’t stop the real Hathaway from walking away with the real Oscar.
Then there’s the swag delivered to academy voters, like the custom ukulele sent out in 2012 to promote The Descendants.
Oscar campaigns also involve lobbyists paid to generate PR and smear other contenders. But sometimes the stars do the dirty work themselves, as Meryl Streep is alleged to have done in a 2014 speech in which she attacked Walt Disney.
The speech was meant to honour Emma Thompson, who was hoping for a best-actress nomination for Saving Mr. Banks, in which Disney was depicted. By trashing him, Streep may have been improving her own chances at a best-actress nomination, which she ended up receiving, while Thompson did not.
All this high-power marketing isn’t cheap. All told, studios will spend over $100 million campaigning for this year’s Oscars.
Bruce Chambers is a syndicated advertising columnist for CBC Radio.