Oscar Award commercials fail to entice eager crowds

It is rare to see an actress on the Oscar red carpet wearing her gown from the previous year.

Why, then, were there so many retreads among the commercials that appeared on Sunday during the ABC coverage of the 82nd annual Academy Awards?

The reruns were an aberration given that for many years the Oscars broadcast had been a showcase for new commercials, much like the Super Bowl.

For instance, both commercials from McDonald’s on Sunday had run before.

One, a spot for Chicken McNuggets about a girls’ hockey team, appeared dozens of times last month during the NBC coverage of the Winter Olympics.

Other examples of what in the parlance of car dealers might be called pre-watched commercials included a spot for Intel, which first appeared on February 7 during the Super Bowl XLIV postgame show; a spot for Windows 7 from Microsoft; and a spot for Zyrtec Liquid Gels, sold by a unit of Johnson & Johnson.

Some advertisers mixed new and old spots.

Of five commercials from Coca-Cola Co. for Coca-Cola and Diet Coke, one was new.

Of the eight commercials for Hyundai Motor America, three were new.

It was no coincidence that one of the previously seen commercials from Coca-Cola was on the subject of recycling.

The reason for the reuse, it appears, is the weak economy.

Although ABC was able to charge more for commercial time during the show than it charged during the 2009 broadcast, advertisers seemed in a frugal mood.

The broadcast was the second year in a row that Academy Awards advertisers thriftily reused previous work.

Last year, sponsors like MasterCard also reran commercials.

Of the commercials on Sunday that were new, perhaps the most surprising was a spot from Apple to promote the introduction of the iPad, scheduled April 3.