Data: $53m spent on Oscar ‘For Your Consideration’ ads
March 24, 2022
During Oscar season, it’s not uncommon for studios to spend millions of dollars promoting their films in hopes to influence Academy Award voters. This calculated campaigning goes well beyond traditional advertising methods including throwing swanky events, grassroots regional and out-of-home investments, known as ‘For Your Consideration’ (FCU) campaigns.
MediaRadar reviewed ad spend for the Academy Awards from 2019 through 2022, to date. Based on Oscar season beginning typically around November, data begins tracking each year’s Oscar FCU ads that month through April of the event’s airing year.
Key findings include:
- In reviewing MediaRadar’s sampling of FCU advertising to date, even with March not yet over, there’s already a 7 per cent increase in total spend for 2022’s Oscars season – nearly $53 million (€48.2m).
- There was a 5 per cent decline YoY in 2020, expected after a record breaking year and with the campaigning season in 2020 being cut short due to Covid-19 pandemic.
- 2021’s Oscars season decrease of 12 per cent isn’t surprising. That season was based on movies in 2020 when pandemic safety precautions and “normal” life was completely disrupted.
The chart below compares advertising spend YoY on FCU ad buys:
Top five spenders for the 2022 FCU Oscars season that make up 73 per cent of the spend include: AT&T, Amazon, MGM, Netflix and The Walt Disney Company.
Since 2019, the print space has been the largest media ranging from 62 per cent to 86 per cent of the total spend. Periodicals like The Hollywood Reporter, The Los Angeles Times, and Variety are popular, since these media companies reach Academy voters – online and in print.
The chart below looks at each top spending studio’s approach:
