Evaliant News
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Media Post
Tuesday, February 13, 2001
Is The Path To Oscar Paved In Internet Gold?
They say the "Oscar buzz" actually begins with the Golden Globe nominations and since the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) made their December 21st announcement, the race for Oscar gold has found Ridley Scott's Gladiator neck in neck with Steven Soderbergh's Traffic.
Both Gladiator and Traffic received 5 nods each from the HFPA, but ultimately the Romans prevailed, the HFPA awarding Gladiator with the Best Picture Golden Globe, indicating a strong Oscar nod. How will the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) respond?
Leading Web Advertisers (LWA) has been tracking online advertising campaigns for the Best Picture Oscar contenders and at least in terms of online advertising, Traffic is beating Gladiator by placing 187 times more ads on the Web than its rival.
LWA has found that between January 1st and February 12th, USA Films has plugged the trailing Traffic with an astounding 566 ads online, while Dream Works, seemingly comfortable with the mighty Gladiator's contention for Oscar, has issued only 3 online ads in total, all appearing during the first week of January.
"Traffic, still running in theatres nationwide, might also be trying to drive ticket sales," states LWA's CEO, Michael Kubin. "The fact that in the last month alone, Traffic advertised close to 500% more than Gladiator is staggering."
In addition, LWA discovered that in the months leading up to the Golden Globe nominations and the ceremony, Gladiator advertised an average of 13 ads/week (from October through December). Hence, without practically spending an online dime in the last four months, Gladiator has already seized the Best Picture Golden Globe Award, and is in prime position to seize the Oscar as well.
In the same 7-week period, according to LWA, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was advertised 240 times, followed by Erin Brokovich at 184 ads, Chocolat at 138 ads, and Finding Forrester at 111 ads.
Finally, as LWA reports, while Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon ran its last online ad on January 14th, Finding Forrester on Jan 26th, and Chocolat on February 1st, Erin Brokovich has held steady with and average of 30 ads/week.
The complete list of Oscar nominees is at http://www.oscar.com/nominees/nominees_home.html
