Ah, the Oscars, an 89year-old event honoring achievement in the motion picture arts. For the occasion, this past Sunday, the normally tourist ridden Hollywood Blvd turned into an actual avenue of movie stars gliding down the red carpet as human ads for designer gowns and expensive jewelry.
From a broader, social perspective, one might find frivolity in this ceremonial act of fancily dressed, famous people handing out gold statues to other, fancily dressed, famous people, but I am always, unapologetically, engrossed in this pageantry. I am not alone in my love for the Academy Awards, as it is the second largest live television event in the US, only surpassed by the Super Bowl. Naturally, every year, advertisers take full advantage of the massive television audience. According to The Business Insider, this year, brands payed up to 2.1 million for an Academy Awards spot (Rath, 2017).
Despite its seemingly superficial nature, the Academy Awards has had its share of social and politically charged acceptance speeches (Bishop, 2017). Following this theme, and in line with the commercials from Super Bowl LI, several of the ads aired during the 2017 Oscars took a social stance. Most notably, was one for The New York Times who saw this event as the perfect platform for launching its first ad since 2010 (Rath, 2017). In the minimalist commercial, entitled “The truth is”, the text “the truth is” remains on a white screen, while conflicting messages appear then dissolve, one after another. It then reads “The truth is hard to find. The truth is hard to know. The truth is more important now than ever” and ends with the paper’s logo (Papenfuss, 2017). This campaign builds itself off of the negative criticism and attacks President Donald Trump has aimed at the media, and is also combatant of his administration’s utilization of “alternative facts” (Rath, 2017).
“The truth is” ad campaign, places into practice Heath and Heath’s (2007) first and fifth principles of a sticky campaign, simplicity, and emotions. As The New York Times branding executive David Rubin noted in a recent interview, the ad campaign’s “idea is to be a part of that discussion about what does it mean to find the truth… what is the role of journalism and journalists in that process, and what is the role of reader in supporting that journalism?” (Papenfuss, 2017). The Times’ new campaign provides a simple message and ties it with complex emotions about the current state of society.
But what is the true meaning behind this campaign? Is it purely political? An act of resistance by a part of the media who feel oppressed and mistreated by this new administration? Or is it emotionally panning to those who also feel oppressed by the changing political landscape, in hopes that they will subscribe to the paper? It is no secret that the general newspaper industry has struggled in recent years, due to the rise of internet journalism and blogging (Smith, 2016). However, in the months leading up to the campaign’s launch, The New York Times reported their highest increase in sales since 2011, with the sale of 276,000 digital subscriptions and 25,000 print subscriptions, in its fourth quarter, (Pallota, 2017).
I, personally, think their motives are two-fold. Surely, the Times hopes to secure themselves a front and center spot in the discussion of media’s place in politics, but gaining more subscriptions won’t hurt them either. Perhaps they see the momentum received from recent controversies as a means of taking them out of the fading state of their industry. It will be interesting to see what successes, if any, The New York Times will have with its new campaign.
Bishop, B. (2017, Feb 23).The long history of Oscar speeches as political protest. The Verge. Retrieved from http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/23/14714468/oscars-2017-academy-awards-political-speeches-history
Heath, C., Heath, D. (2007). Made to stick: Why some ideas survive and others die. New York, NY: Random House.
Papenfuss, M. (2017, Feb 26) The New York Times is running a ‘truth is hard’ ad during Oscars. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ny-times-truth-ad_us_58b2813ee4b0a8a9b782eba0
Palotta, F. (2017, Feb. 2). New York Times touts subscriber growth with a jab at Trump. CNN Money. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/02/media/new-york-times-subscribers-trump/
Rath, J. (2017, Feb 23). The New York Times wants to fuel political debate around what ‘the truth is’ with its latest TV ad. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-times-want-to-fuel-political-debate-with-newest-tv-ad-2017-2
Smith, G. (2016, April 19). The fading newspaper. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/the-fading-newspaper
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