Oscar Award commercials fail to entice eager crowds

Apple had not indicated before Sunday that it intended to be an Oscar sponsor.

That said, however, after the iPad commercial ran, it was shown twice again.

Samsung followed the same pattern, showing a commercial for its new 3-D TV sets and then running it three additional times.

What follows is an assessment of some of the Oscar commercials during the show, out of the total of almost 50 that ran nationally on ABC.

Best Costume Design: New commercials from J.C. Penney showed off to good advantage a closet’s worth of colorful, kicky women’s clothes bearing labels like Olsenboye and Bisou Bisou.

For the first time since Penney became the exclusive national retail sponsor of the broadcast, there was also a spot devoted to men’s apparel.

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, part of the Publicis Groupe.

Best Makeup: After a year without a sponsor in the important beauty category, ABC ran a commercial from Estee Lauder during the show. It was a single spot, but it was a start.

Best Score: In a humorous promotional spot for “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the ABC late-night comedy show, Kimmel was shown in bed with his former faux paramour, Ben Affleck, and Affleck’s wife, the actress Jennifer Garner. The commercial was created internally at ABC.

Best Song: It was a tie between “Sweet Disposition” by the Temper Trap, heard in a new Diet Coke commercial, and “There Goes My Love” by the Blue Van, heard in the new iPad commercial.

The agency that created the Diet Coke spot is Wieden & Kennedy and the agency that created the iPad spot is the TBWA Media Arts Lab, part of the TBWA Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group.

Best Sound Editing: Hyundai Motor America replaced the voice of Jeff Bridges, the longtime announcer for its commercials, with the voices of other stars because of rules limiting the ability of participants in the Oscar broadcast to take part in commercials that run during the show.

(Bridges was up for, and subsequently won, the Oscar for best actor, giving him a nice consolation prize for ceding his pitchman’s duties.)

Two pinch-hitters for Bridges were former Oscar winners: Richard Dreyfuss, who supplied the narration for two commercials, and Kim Basinger. The others were David Duchovny, Catherine Keener, Michael Madsen, Mandy Patinkin and Martin Sheen.

NEW YORK TIMES