Statuettes have been handed out and the red carpet has been rolled back up, but the impact of the 97th Academy Awards remains. The 2025 Oscars broadcast on ABC and Hulu entertained us and delivered exceptional results for brands that chose Hollywood's biggest night to showcase their ads.
EDO's immediate engagement data reveals that advertisers who invested in the ceremony drove significantly higher consumer engagement than typical primetime programming.
Ads during the 2025 Oscars were 172% more effective than the primetime average, and to match the impact of a single Oscars ad, advertisers would need to air approximately 88 primetime ads elsewhere. Beyond that, every industry EDO measured saw above-average performance during the broadcast.
This reinforces that tentpole events like the Academy Awards create unique opportunities for brands to capture consumer interest and drive meaningful engagement.
While the Oscars broadcast proved effective across all advertising categories, the cinephiles watching the ceremony were especially engaged with ads for forthcoming theatrical films. Movie ads were 28x more effective at driving consumer engagement during the 2025 Oscars than the average movie ad during primetime.
Other major winners were pharmaceuticals, telecom brands, and restaurants. Consumers were 477% more likely to engage with pharma ads, 231% more likely to engage with telecom ads, and 208% more likely to engage with restaurant ads during the 2025 Oscars than with the same kinds of ads during the average primetime program.
While all advertisers enjoyed elevated engagement, several particularly resonated with viewers and drove exceptional response rates — including star-studded ads featuring celebrities.
Volkswagen was highly effective in bringing back its parody of the popular “Californians” Saturday Night Live sketch, which debuted in February as part of SNL’s 50th anniversary celebration. In it, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig used their nearly incoherent SoCal accents to discuss the next adventure they’ll take in their Volkswagen ID.Buzz, the brand’s new electric van. The sixty-second spot drove 28.8x as much engagement as the median-performing 2025 Oscars ad, making it the night's standout performer.
Emirates Airlines’ 15-second ad featured Penelope Cruz showing off the airlines’ high-end premium economy section and proved that shorter formats can drive significant impact when strategically placed, achieving 503% as much than the median-performing 2025 Oscars ad.
Rolex also charted a pair of effective ads that featured Leonardo DiCaprio and several of his collaborators, like James Cameron, who worked with him in Titanic, and Martin Scorsese, who directed him in The Departed and Killers of the Flower Moon. The ads generated 439% and 387% as much engagement than the median-performing 2025 Oscars ad.
At a time when the cultural conversation is dominated by GLP-1 drugs, pharma had several of the most engaging ads of the night. Wegovy’s “Discover the Power” ad saw 465% as much engagement as the median, while Zepbound’s “Change” ad drove 299% as much engagement. And Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Zepbound, generated 250% as much engagement as the median with its “healthy skeptic” ad, which takes aim at compounded versions of GLP-1 weight loss drugs.
This year's Oscars event reinforces several key insights for media buyers and sellers:
The 2025 Oscars broadcast proves that in an increasingly fragmented media landscape, tentpole events continue to offer advertisers exceptional opportunities to drive consumer engagement at scale.
By understanding which programs and creative approaches drive the strongest consumer response, brands can optimize their TV advertising investments and business outcomes.