The Academy Awards is the second biggest TV event behind the Super Bowl.  This past Sunday night, the award show scored its highest ratings in a decade with 43 million viewers.  The average cost for a :30second spot was $1.8 million, which equated to at least an estimated $90million in ad revenue.   Thanks to social media, these awards shows are making a comeback as viewership continues to increase year over year.  Just Twitter alone, received over 14million tweets related to the #Oscar awards .The best way to catch some of the highlights from this event was by following your social media feeds.  If it’s interesting enough for your network of friends to be talking about, then it’s definitely worth tuning in and seeing what the buzz is all about.

How else would you hear about the infamous “selfie” that broke Twitter’s record for most retweets? The spot may have appeared to be spontaneous and unplanned but was actually negotiated by Samsung’s team.  The stunt felt organic and unforced, proving to be a successful product placement of the Galaxy Note 3 during the show.  This is good old fashioned native advertising and from a media perspective, maybe the biggest winner of the night.

….or what about the Los Angeles Pizza chain that received free product placement as photos of celebrities eating a slice swarmed the internet? As a result, people searched online for the pizza chain, ultimately causing their website to be shut down as a result of the influx of traffic.  

..and the continuous coverage about Pharrell’s hat?  Pharell is a brand all on his own — his interesting choice of headwear has people talking about him and keeps him relevant.  The social media buzz around it just continues on.

This is just another example of how powerful social media can be as it provides brands the ability to become viral, generate engagement, and get users to take action… all in a matter of seconds.

Cindy Nguy
Just Media, Inc.