You’ve already heard about the Coke logo snafu, but the 2014 Academy Awards provided other useful social media lessons for those of us in the branding, marketing, or recruiting fields. From the meticulously planned to the completely unexpected, a few Oscar moments had enormous effects on Twitter, driven by brands and the public.
Planned Product Placement
Samsung paid several million dollars for five minutes of product placement and other consideration during the broadcast. This came in the form of host Ellen DeGeneres using a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 to take photos and check Twitter during the ceremony.
Samsung’s involvement hit its peak when Ellen announced she wanted to take a photo and make it the most tweeted image ever. Though she seemed to want only Meryl Streep in the photo, soon a gaggle of nominees and past winners huddled around her, and Bradley Cooper — chosen for having the longest arms — took the group’s picture with the Galaxy. Sure enough, it quickly became the most retweeted tweet of any kind in history, with 3,331,527 retweets at last count. That easily dwarfs the previous champion, President Obama’s re-election tweet, which topped out at a paltry 781,298.
However, Ellen somewhat undercut her Samsung promotion by tweeting backstage photos to her personal Twitter during the broadcast from her iPhone. This may not have made Samsung happy, but it’s keeping with Ellen’s personal brand: she frequently touts the iPhone on her talk show and has even featured it in songs and comedy sketches.
The lesson: Examine all the angles. Anyone at Samsung who watched Ellen’s should have known she might use her own phone backstage. Consider the big picture when sponsoring, hosting, or participating in a live event.
Unexpected Opportunities
Many brands and their marketing teams were watching the Academy Awards, waiting for an “Oreo moment” — a incident, somehow related to their product, which could be exploited via Twitter. For Oreo, it was a clever graphic and tagline tweeted during Super Bowl XLVII’s power outage, which garnered almost 16,000 retweets. But just as that electrical failure was completely unforeseen, brands had no idea what to expect during winners’ acceptance speeches or Ellen’s impromptu escapades, such as the group photo mentioned above.
Ellen ordering pizza seemed like just such a moment. When she joked about it early in the broadcast, Pizza Hut seized on Ellen’s remarks and quickly tweeted, “Did somebody say pizza? We got you.” The chain got a pretty good 974 retweets for their speedy reaction; my cursory research finds the best Pizza Hut posts seem to get 100-200. But the spotlight only lasted until a delivery man for Big Mama’s & Papa’s Pizzeria showed up and Ellen started handing out slices.
Miller Lite also jumped at an opportunity when Matthew McConaughey won Best Actor. During his speech, he said his father was probably in heaven, “with a cold can of Miller Lite, and he’s just dancin’.” The brand quickly tweeted, “Miller Lite. The official beer of award winning actor’s dads [sic].” At last count, that post had more than 2,000 retweets.
The lesson: Oreo’s tweet last year has probably changed live events forever. From now on, your brand should watch major live broadcasts — award shows, sporting events, political debates, and maybe even the Rose Parade — and try to find something they can tie into a clever tweet.
Total Insanity
Possibly the most talked-about moment was, like the Super Bowl blackout, an accident that had never quite occurred at an Oscars broadcast — or never quite like this. When John Travolta introduced Idina Menzel, performing Best Song nominee “Let It Go,” he inexplicably mangled her name, calling her “Adele Dazeem” (spellings differ, for obvious reasons).
Twitter exploded. Half a dozen Twitter profiles with the name “Adele Dazeem” sprang up immediately, though only one seemed to get any traction and probably won’t last long. It was such a strange incident that no brand could find a strategy to exploit it. What could they do? Maybe Warby Parker could recommend Travolta come to them for corrective lenses or LASIK could volunteer their services? That might have drawn the ire of people with actual vision or reading impairments. So perhaps brands were smart to stay silent.
Though brands couldn’t capitalize, many experts thing that Menzel is the true winner. Karen Post, author of Brand Turnaround, told the New York Daily News that the name game could be the best thing that ever happened to her. “After 43 million people witnessed Travolta’s gaffe,” the Daily News reported, “Menzel’s Twitter following began increasing rapidly.”
The lesson: Be prepared for anything during a live broadcast…but know when to show restraint.
Will brands be ready for the next big live event? Will another unexpected moment join the “Adele Dazeem” in the Social Media Hall of Fame? Stay tuned…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.
