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The Academy Awards show in February will have some unexpected inventory available for advertisers. In what may be the most prominent sign so far of General Motors’ diminishing marketing budget, the automaker - which spent $13.5 million on media for the 2008 Oscars - has announced that it will not advertise during the Oscars in February.
The company says that advertising during such a significant event makes more sense when a major new vehicle is being launched. Since that isn’t the case next February, GM decided to skip the Oscars altogether.
GM has advertised during the Oscars for the last 11 years, for a total spend of more than $110 million, according to TNS (via Brandweek).
GM will also skip the Emmys in September, but will continue to advertise with the Golden Globes, the Grammys and the Country Music Awards.
Peter DeLorenzo, publisher of the AutoExtremist blog, believes the move to pull out of the Oscars is a risky one. “The big events on TV are the only events worth spending money on. For GM to pull back from something like this is puzzling because the positioning is so good.”
In July, the company said it was limiting its capital spending in sales and marketing to $15 billion through 2009, focusing on product launches and brand advertising.
Sales for the automaker are down 17.7 percent through July, according to Autodata. General Motors $2.3 billion on advertising in the U.S. in 2006 (excluding online), and just over $2 billion in 2007, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
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