TLK

Behind Oscar Selfie: Samsung's Ad Strategy Marketer Spent Nearly $20 Million on Ad Time—and Got Product Placement for Galaxy Phone Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE -1.78% likely spent nearly $20 million on ads to run during breaks in the Academy Awards broadcast on Sunday night. But Samsung may have got more promotional mileage from Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres during the show itself. Ms. DeGeneres toyed with a white Samsung phone during the broadcast, including when she handed a Galaxy Note 3 to actor Bradley Cooper so he could take a "selfie" photo of himself and other stars including Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Lawrence surrounding the host. While the stunt felt spontaneous, it wasn't entirely unplanned. As part of its sponsorship and ad pact for the Oscars with ABC, the TV network airing the show, Samsung and its media buying firm Starcom MediaVest negotiated to have its Galaxy smartphone integrated into the show, according to two people familiar with the matter. ABC is a unit of Walt Disney Co. DIS -1.67% Samsung gave ABC smartphones to use during the broadcast and was promised its devices would get airtime, these people said. At least one of the product plugs was planned: during the "red carpet" preshow, ABC ran a clip of six aspiring young filmmakers touring Disney Studios. The group were seen in the video using Samsung devices. The origin of the "selfie" shot was a little different. Ms. DeGeneres, in the days leading up to the broadcast, decided she wanted to take "selfies" during the show and ABC suggested she use a Samsung since it was a sponsor, another person familiar with the matter said. During rehearsals Samsung executives trained Ms. DeGeneres on how to use the Samsung Galaxy, two people familiar with the matter said. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304585004579417533278962674?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304585004579417533278962674.html

Well, they are paying the bills so why not.

True Detective is not the reason. MM had this locked even before True Detective premiered on HBO. I think the problem is the characters Leo has been playing recently. People just don't want to give Oscar to a douchebag character unless the actor hits it out of the park like Denzel or Anthony Hopkins.

I like Wolf and Django too but I am trying to diagnose why he didn't win over MM. I know it is subjective but I thought Leo was better than MM and yet was never really in the running to win this thing. BAFTA went with Ejiofor over Leo as well.

Leo should change his name to Ofer DiCaprio because he is ofer-5. To be fair, I think the characters he is playing are hurting his chance. His last three characters are all rich, narcissistic assholes and that's not a good look for someone who is perceived as a rich , narcissistic A-lister. Maybe he should play a depression era Oklahoma farmer next.

Harvey introduced Big Eyes to buyers at Cannes last year. The project is finished and they are aiming a fall 2014 release so it is a very strong possibility as well. Suite Francaise could very easily premiere at Cannes too.

Frank Rich ‏@frankrichny 1m 12 Years a Monologue. #Oscars

Are there people who find Ellen funny ?

Murray hasn't aged very well. To be fair he looked 50 when he was 30-35. But I don't care . He is a better actor than anyone nominated for Best Actor this year.

Christopher Rosen ‏@chrisjrosen 6m Best part of Jennifer Lawrence's trip was that Robert Patrick from "T2" was there to catch her http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/jalwfall-liveblog.gif …

This could have been so much better.

Why is Into The Woods considered an awards contender ? Is this because of Meryl because nothing else about the project sounds like an Oscar movie ?

Is the August release date for Big Eyes accurate ? Harvey's big Oscar movies usually open in the October-December frame so we still don't know how Harvey sees it.

JLaw for Serena. The movie is likely to premiere at Cannes and it should get good distribution.

She is right but she shouldn't single out AMPAS. This is true of all the awards shows. HFPA is worse and more corrupt. BAFTA isn't that much better than the Oscars either.

Divergent is already tracking in the low 50s with three weeks to go. This movie is not going to flop and people here continually underestimate LGF/Summit's ability to market movies to young adults. Twilight and THG are obvious examples but neither Ender's Game nor Warm Bodies were flops.

Rio made $500 million worldwide so Rio 2 shouldn't have much problem making $500 million +. Noah may come close but Divergent will likely finish with a sub-400 million WW total.

Not only are they backing this movie over Affleck's Whitey Bulger biopic, it will also compete against Affleck's Live By Night for Oscars attention. Batman must be pissed off right now.

If they are equal then Son Of God will win the weekend. Non-Stop is a Friday evening type of movie but Son Of God will do very well on Saturday and Sunday.

The battle for box office glory during Oscar weekend will be tight with Universal’s Liam Neeson actioner “Non-Stop” expected to wind up around $25 million, just edging out Fox’s Biblical drama “Son of God” which should end up at $21 to $25 million. http://variety.com/2014/film/news/box-office-son-of-god-prays-for-25-million-weekend-gaining-on-non-stop-1201123569/

Any numbers ?

JLaw will win this year as well. There may be some backlash against her but those votes are going to be split four ways and she is popular enough that she will get enough votes to win. All four acting categories are set and I am not expecting any upsets.

I am going to say that Son Of God will not be frontloaded on Friday. Religious movies do very well on Saturdays and Sundays. The talk is that the ticket sales have been spread out and a lot of the presales aren't even for the opening weekend.

PSH had nothing to do with her Oscar movie and he has been dead for weeks. To invoke his name while she is up there on the podium for only 90 seconds will be cynical and calculated. She can talk about him while she is promoting the two Mockingjay movies.