Advertisers worried EVERYONE will boycott Oscars now that it’s just a participation trophy

With all the controversy over the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences alleged lack of diversity, the advertising industry is nervous about whether folks will tune in to the Academy Awards next month.

An understandable concern, now that a prestigious Oscar is being rendered little more than a participation trophy.

In response to no black actors being nominated this year, actor Will Smith and director Spike Lee, among others, announced they would not attend the awards show. This threat of a boycott prompted a knee-jerk reaction from the Academy, which caved to the shakedown from artists, by agreeing to “become less male and less white,” as The New York Times described their actions to increase diversity.

Ironically, the Academy’s tagline for this year’s show is “We all dream in gold” — given their capitulation to those who place more importance on the color of one’s skin than talent, perhaps they’ll change that to “We all dream in brown.”

But the boycott that matters may come from television viewers fed up with the race rift, not from entitled Hollywood moonbats, and that gives Madison Avenue a reason to worry, according to the New York Post.

And there’s a lot of money at stake, as the Post reported:

Broadcaster ABC took in $110 million in 2015, charging as much as $1.83 million for a single 30-second spot. This year advertisers are ponying up as much as $2.2 million for the third-most expensive live event on TV, after the Super Bowl and this weekend’s NFC Championship game, according to Kantar Media…

But ad sources told The Post that while there will be no discounts or rebates for ads bought this year, ABC will feel the pain during negotiations over next year’s show. Those talks typically start the day after the Oscars, set to air Feb. 28.

ABC may not be able to jack up the price — typically the cost per ad has risen around $200,000 a pop — as it has done in past years.

 

Retailer Kohl’s, a first-time sponsor of the event, replacing JC Penney after 14 years, invested heavily and was planning a “massive social presence” in the month leading up to the show, according to Advertising Age.

Talk about bad timing: that campaign should be launching right about now.

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