The fallout from the 2012 Oscars was as predictable as the evening itself: “it’s nothing new, boring, too long, no excitement,” etc.: a universal ho-hum.
If anything, the show was a sad lesson about being old and extraneous while all the time screaming “I’m Relevant, I’m Still Important.” No, you’re not, particularly to anyone under 40.
So how did this once beloved extravaganza go from the event of the year to just another TV show on a Sunday night? Movies are just as popular as ever, maybe moreso, then it’s not that the potential audience is shrinking.
The answer is very simple. And these points explain why marketing and advertising have turned into one giant yawn (need I remind you of the me-too Superbowl ads?).... art forms that once mattered and now are barely hanging on.
1. The original raison d'etre of the Oscars is no longer tenable. The event was started as a PR stunt to push Hollywood ‘stars’ at a time when people could only see their favorite actors in the theater and knew little of their personal lives. So the Oscars were a chance to see how Carol Lombard looked on the arm of Clark Gable… in a sense, fans had this one time each year to see their favorite stars as ‘human.’
Today we are surrounded by a 24/7 celebrity culture. C’mon, I know what kind of underwear these people like, that Brad and Angelina had a fight last night, that the dog from “The Artist” likes Kibbles and Bits not Purina Dog Chow. Point is, we don’t need this event to get an ‘inside’ look. We have more info than we need – there are no surprises on the red carpet and even fewer in the results.
(Same with marketing. We still try to entice consumers with marketing and ads the ‘reveal’ what people already know. The average man or woman understands more about our products and companies than many of our employees. That’s why ads that tell us what we already know are ho-hum. [And particularly B2B where no company wants to reveal its 'secrets' – even though a 5-year-old can find them on the Net.] BMW is still the ultimate driving machine after 40 years and I’m supposed to be surprised by that when I see it in an ad? With the Oscars as with marketing, TELL ME OR SHOW ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW. Otherwise I’m bored and you’re dull and irrelevant.)
2. In the same vein, the primordial belief that underpins the Oscars is that Hollywood is the center of the movie making world. It was in 1935, it ain’t now. Yet the show continues to play up the Hollywood mystique even though movies are global – in fact, movies may be the most global product in the world. Sure, the show tips its hat to ‘foreign language’ films (and in today’s world these movies aren’t any more foreign to me than an Adam Sandler comedy that I don’t get). The basic nature of the industry has changed, yet the Academy refuses to budge from its Hollywood-centric approach. So they perpetuate an idea that’s been dead for decades and wonder why consumers are bored.
Again, same with marketing. Kellogg continues pushing cereal as a healthy breakfast alternative (at least they had the intelligence to say “part of a healthy breakfast” although which part I still don’t know: the high carb, high sugar part, I guess). We live in an age that treats carbs like poison and sugar like crack. “No, it’s still 1920 and Americans want and need cereal.” Sure, in the same way that Americans still like to fry with lard (which was the #1 way to fry until the 1960s).
Now take a look at what Bayer did for aspirin. That little white pill went from pain relief to heart attack prevention – brilliant and had to be done once the world recognized that ibuprofen and other NSAIDs were better for pain. Credit Bayer with not sticking with its olde worlde message and having the sense to see that the premise of the product had changed. So that makes one company out of a million that gets it.
OK, so what’s the Academy supposed to do? What are marketers supposed to do? Begin by challenging the basic premise of your product. Is it still applicable? If not, have the courage to create a new, true story and be willing to tell it in a new way. How silly is it to be advertising “ironing boards for that wrinkle free look” when our clothes don’t require ironing? Sounds stupidly simple – then why don’t most companies get it? It's probably because no one can ever see himself or herself as irrelevant. (C'mon, in the last 20 years how many countries have disappeared? Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the USSR, to name a few. If countries can disappear so can the need for your product.)
My advice to the Academy: Since movies are universal why not hold the event in a different international city each year? Let the locals add their culture and flair to the evening in the same way that Olympic opening ceremonies are unique to the host country. That would NOT be boring! It would also demonstrate the global reach of movies and, in many ways, make Hollywood look grander, more universal and more important than it is.
Or keep doing the same old show, produced by the same five people every year… and wonder why we're turning off and dropping out of the Oscars. (Do the same old ads with the same old agency and the same old look and wonder why the new kid of the block is taking market share… same difference.)
One more thing. The best, truest statement of the night came from Billy Crystal when he said (I paraphrase)… “what better way for the average American to feel good about their sinking economic status than to watch millionaires give each other golden statues.”
In the 1930s, out-of-work or under-employed Americans held no grudge against the rich; today we do (and it’s warranted, IMHO). Maybe the Academy should openly recognize this change and offer to close the financial disparity by funding education programs to help people get into movie making or just sponsor a soup kitchen on Hollywood Blvd – something, for God’s sake, to show you’re aware.
Finally, it’s ironic that this year’s Best Film is a tribute to what old Hollywood used to do right and no longer does... a time when Hollywood mattered. It's the equivalent of Best Album of the year being a remixed version of “Abbey Road.”
“Consumers want a new story... authenticity, not spin... participation, not propaganda.”
