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 Forget Twitter or Facebook, the place to play is local
television, newspapers and radio, and part of the game is
getting the final word or viewing with Academy members before
voting ends on Tuesday.
"The number of people voting is pretty small," said Jonathan
Taplin, an Oscar voter and producer of Martin Scorsese's 1973
film "Mean Streets." "If you can influence 100 people that might
make the difference."
Best picture favorites "Birdman" and "Boyhood" each have had
extensive advertising campaigns in the New York Times and Los
Angeles Times. Those newspapers represent two cities with a
significant amount of Academy members, who mostly comprise movie
actors, producers, directors and executives.
On the western part of Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, a hub
of the film industry, it is not uncommon to see billboards
touting Oscar contenders, like "The Imitation Game," which has
eight nominations, including best picture.
"It's like dropping leaflets from the sky," said Glenn Whipp,
the film awards expert at the Los Angeles Times.
"It's hard to imagine, given how pervasive it is, that any
Academy member cannot be aware of these movies," Whipp added.
The campaigns target a fairly homogenous group. A 2012
investigation by the Los Angeles Times showed members of the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are 94 percent white
and 77 percent male with a median age of 62. The Academy does
not reveal the demographic breakdown.
Hollywood studios covet the prestige the Feb. 22 Academy Awards
can bestow on a film as well as the commercial bump a movie may
find, whether winning or in pre-Oscar advertising.
LAST WORD
For independent film "Boyhood," a best picture favorite, its
distributor IFC Films launched an awards push in the summer in
part to reach audiences early and outside of crowded and
expensive fall-winter awards season.
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"The key aspect for us has always been getting the movie seen by
audiences," said IFC Films president Jonathan Sehring, "because when
the movie is seen by audiences, it really touches so many people in
so many different ways. That's been the strength of the film from
the outset."
For some films in down-ballot categories like documentaries and
animated features, it's about enticing voters to watch, particularly
when 15 different films earn nominations for acting and best picture
awards.
"The ultimate goal is to engage the 6,000-plus voters to simply
watch our movie," said a Hollywood awards consultant who was not
authorized to speak publicly. "They can't vote for it if they
haven't seen it."
The top two contenders in animated feature, DreamWorks' Golden
Globe-winner "How to Train Your Dragon 2" and Disney's "Big Hero 6"
have featured prominently on Los Angeles radio, turning it into a
hotly contested race.
Oscar campaigns aren't cheap, with marketing costs running in the
millions of dollars. That includes expenses such as mailing
thousands of screener DVDs to voters and guild members, like
directors and writers, who have their own awards.
But for best picture nominees this year, it's more about getting the
last word before votes are cast.
The visually unconventional "Birdman" plays on its ambitious nature
with taglines "Risk. Above all." and "Truth. Above All." in print
ads. Coming-of-age tale "Boyhood" bids for votes with the slogans
"One family's life" and "Everyone's story."
"They've really tried to hone the universality of the film," Whipp
said of the "Boyhood" campaign. "They're tapping into what the
movie's strengths are with voters."
(Additional reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant
and Lisa Lambert)
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