Among the commercials that aired during Sunday’s surprise-filled Oscar telecast, a spot for electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors performed the best, according to EDO, a research company that measures how much search traffic results from a commercial airing.
EDO said the Lucid spot was responsible for about 1 million additional searches.
The auto category as a whole was a strong performer, generating 33% of the total search during the ad breaks in the awards show. Last year, auto commercials generated just 18% of search traffic.
Other top performing ads were for Grey Goose, the Disney bundle and two airings of a spot for Rolex.
Also: Media and Entertainment Brands Dominate Oscar Commercial Breaks.
Like last year, ads for movies and TV shows generated just under half all of the searches that were initiated during the Oscar cast.
Lightyear, from Disney and Pixar, generated about 402,000 additional online searches.
Following Lightyear on the search leaderboard were trailers for The Girl from Plainville, Under the Banner of Heaven, Candy and The Offer.
EDO’s viewership figures show the audience peaking about one hour and 20 minutes into the show. When Will Smith hand found Chris Rock’s face viewership spiked again, though not quite reaching peak levels. Over the next half hour, viewership dropped back, eventually falling below pre-altercation levels.
According to another research company, Samba TV, this year’s Oscars were watched by 11.5 million U.S. households, up 32% from a year ago.
Samba TV said that after the slap 1.5 million new households tuned in to watch what happened next at the Oscars.
”Even before the slap heard around the world drew huge attention to the Oscars, it was clear this year‘s awards show was on track to outperform last year’s ceremony. The 11.5M households that opted to tune in live to this year’s awards was a clear break from the declining awards show trend we saw in 2021,” said Cole Strain, head of measurement at Samba TV.
“Streaming may have played a role in broadening interest for the films this year as viewers were able to easily watch all of the best picture nominees from the comfort of their home before Sunday night,” Strain added. “Our data showed that Best Picture winner, CODA, actually experienced the single largest post Oscar nomination bounce in streaming viewership - a sign that all of the generated Oscar buzz played a helpful role in introducing new audiences and new academy voters to the film.”■
