With the Oscars just days away, industry figures have tried to strike a reflective, humble tone in light of a glut of recent controversies that have dogged Hollywood.
From the #OscarsSoWhite row of 2016 to the Weinstein sexual misconduct scandal currently engulfing the business, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is acutely aware of the need to project a more wholesome image.
The good news is that both the viewing public and the deep-pocketed advertisers who make the annual telecast so lucrative, far from being fazed by Tinseltown’s manifold iniquities, seem to trust the Oscars brand more than ever.
“There is no doubt that Oscar has made a total turnaround,” said celebrity branding expert Jeetendr Sehdev, author of a recent study on attitudes to the glitzy climax of Hollywood’s annual awards season.
“It’s a phenomenal achievement for the leaders of the Academy, not only because the brand has been highly discredited and distrusted over the past few years but also because of the politically charged environment in Hollywood.”
Sehdev, an influential academic with more than a million followers on social media, solicits opinions about the rich and famous from 2,000 randomly-selected adults in the US as part of an ongoing study established in 2012.
In his most recent survey, entitled “The Power of the Oscar,” 71 percent of respondents said they saw the Oscars brand as trustworthy — up from 51 percent in 2015.
