
The most groundbreaking part of the Oscar's last night was not the number of awards, the winners or the thousands of thousands of dollars spent on the couture apparel worn by the Hollywood elite. Rather, Ellen Degeneres quite literally stole the show when a selfie style tweet was responsible for receiving the most retweets in history and the resulting temporary Twitter crash. The message was retweeted almost 2 million times in three hours, crushing all former records, including the former most retweeted tweet by President Barack Obama announcing his reelection.
Never solely a matter of innocent fun, the clear product placement and promotion was an absolute success for Samsung, the phone Degeneres handed to Bradley Cooper to snap the selfie. The South Korean based company was a sponsor of the Academy Awards, taking over the account of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences according to Bloomberg. Samsung used the highly anticipated and viewed award show, according to Nielson the show reached 40.3 million viewers last year, to introduce their newest campaign "One Samsung" featuring their groundbreaking new product line. The line featured curved televisions, their much anticipated and newest smartphone, the Galaxy S5; the Galaxy Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches, according to AdAge.com. Needless to say, the innovation of Samsung was clearly delivered through their five minutes of air time and, in my opinion, positioned themselves as the biggest competition for Apple products on the market.
Additionally, I have to comment on the underlying positive message of having Ellen Degeneres, an open lesbian and supporter of equality, host the Oscars. Even further, Degeneres' influence on popular culture through her social media presence proven through her 2 million retweets, shows the fight for LGBT equality moving in the right (or actually left) direction.
Never solely a matter of innocent fun, the clear product placement and promotion was an absolute success for Samsung, the phone Degeneres handed to Bradley Cooper to snap the selfie. The South Korean based company was a sponsor of the Academy Awards, taking over the account of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences according to Bloomberg. Samsung used the highly anticipated and viewed award show, according to Nielson the show reached 40.3 million viewers last year, to introduce their newest campaign "One Samsung" featuring their groundbreaking new product line. The line featured curved televisions, their much anticipated and newest smartphone, the Galaxy S5; the Galaxy Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches, according to AdAge.com. Needless to say, the innovation of Samsung was clearly delivered through their five minutes of air time and, in my opinion, positioned themselves as the biggest competition for Apple products on the market.
Additionally, I have to comment on the underlying positive message of having Ellen Degeneres, an open lesbian and supporter of equality, host the Oscars. Even further, Degeneres' influence on popular culture through her social media presence proven through her 2 million retweets, shows the fight for LGBT equality moving in the right (or actually left) direction.