Real-time marketing at the Oscars: Winners and losers

And after last year’s Ellen DeGeneres-selfie coup for Samsung, brands were on the lookout for more moments to glom onto. Below, we run down the best and worst of real-time marketing at the Academy Awards.

Best
Dove
Last year, women sent over 5 million negative tweets about beauty and body image, according to Dove. The brand teamed up with Twitter to combat the bad vibes, in a move reminiscent of Coke’s #MakeItHappy Super Bowl outing. You’ve been put on watch, snarky Twitter. The #SpeakBeautiful hashtag had 14,000 mentions on Twitter leading up to the Oscars, according to social media metrics firm Amobee.

Why it’s important to #SpeakBeautiful: Through 10pm – 1,378 Tweets used “hideous” which is LESS than these terms: https://t.co/ONPvLafWmP

— Dove (@Dove) February 23, 2015

The U.S. Department of Labor
Not technically a “brand,” the government’s labor agency won points for getting this tweet up right when it mattered most, after “Boyhood” star Patricia Arquette spent quite a bit of her speech talking about equal pay for women.

FACT: Women make 78% of what their male counterparts make. Learn more: https://t.co/ZUbWdaIJPr #Oscars pic.twitter.com/YyNgF14gRk — US Labor Department (@USDOL) February 23, 2015

Lego
“The Lego Movie” — basically a two-hour ad — was not only nominated for an Oscar, but also managed to insert another two-minute ad in the middle of the show, when Tegan and Sara performed the song “Everything is Awesome” from the film. Then — the company handed out Oscar statues made of Legos to key members of the audience. The statues were made by the movie’s director, Phil Lord, who tweeted about them when the movie didn’t get nominated for Best Picture or Best Director. Bravo. 

#EverythingIsAwesome at the #Oscars! pic.twitter.com/A7HzK7FOGG

— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) February 23, 2015

Farmer’s Insurance
It took a few minutes, but Farmer’s Insurance jumped on spokesperson J.K. Simmons’ win for Best Supporting Actor with this timely, albeit flat, tweet. It got an extra boost when host Neil Patrick Harris sang the jingle on stage.    

It’s Oscar gold for #JKSimmons! Congrats on snagging Best Supporting Actor for an amazing performance in Whiplash. #BumBuDumBumBumBumBum — Farmers Insurance (@WeAreFarmers) February 23, 2015

Worst
DiGiorno Pizza
This brand was already feeling a bit stale for awkwardly inserting crust, cheese and sauce “jokes” at every moment possible. But then, it posted — and deleted — a tweet about ovens when a tribute to a movie about Nazis was on. DiGiorno, we expected better from you, especially after this piece of brilliance at the Grammys.

This tweet didn’t last long pic.twitter.com/YSzCFYqE5N

— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) February 23, 2015

Denny’s
A rare miss from Denny’s, which clearly felt compelled to weigh in despite having nothing to say 

oscars: movies are pretty good, probably the best thing dennys: um what about food oscars: oh dang, true

— Denny’s (@DennysDiner) February 23, 2015

Nars
There was much to mine here. For one, it’s a makeup brand trying to advertise during one of the highest-rated shows for women. And two, it actually had someone on the red carpet wearing its makeup — Nicole Kidman. Instead of cashing in, Nars chose to regram someone else’s work and then misspell “break.”    

Regram from @makiryoke: #NicoleKidman before hit the red carpet #AcademyAwards #oscars2015 brake down of the look skin prepped with @lamerofficial makeup using @narsissist

A photo posted by @narsissist on Feb 22, 2015 at 5:54pm PST

Barney’s New York
A lame attempt to insert rain boots into the conversation because it was, er, raining on the red carpet.

3 words: @givenchy rain boots. https://t.co/oHBWnRQLXv RT @mrjoezee…Rain is so not chic. pic.twitter.com/iSCnwiGVrg — Barneys New York (@BarneysNY) February 23, 2015