Ramin Setoodeh has a piece up at Newsweek on how the cancellation of the Golden Globes will impact movie marketing effort. Since “Golden Globe winner!” is often splashed across newspaper ads and TV commercials in the weeks following the awards, the fact that they’ve been downgraded to a press conference event is huge to studios looking for some after-win buzz and subsequent box-office bounce.
I’m quoted in the piece taking the opinion that without the broadcast actually happening, the studios shouldn’t even bother putting the awards that have been won in their marketing. The audience, I think, will just be confused by the verbiage since they may not have even known the award ceremony happened to begin with. So best just to not draw attention to it and let it lie for this year.
Thinking about it a bit more, though, I think it goes deeper than that. The Globes, now that they’ve become a pull-toy for the two sides of the ongoing writer’s strike, have somewhat of a negative public perception. So there’s the possibility that you’re just going to remind the audience of something they’re not fond of by placing a proud blurb in an ad.
I also made the point over the phone that aside from the use of Globes wins in campaigns, the broadcast usually winds up being pretty full of movie ads in and of itself. So studios also lose the opportunity to promote their current and upcoming films to a contextually relevant audience.
I’ve said to others before and I’ll say it again here – the strike will be over when the advertisers say it’s over. Eventually advertisers will begin, in some manner or another, making life so difficult for networks that they have seek a deal with the writers just to retain the share of ad dollars they currently have. And brand managers who secured film product placement deals will be frustrated that the film they bought into is no longer scheduled to coincide with their other campaign efforts and bring pressure to bear there.
It just goes back to the notion that the one who controls the purse strings rules the roost.
Anyway, studios, networks and advertisers are all screwed by the cancellation of the Golden Globes ceremony. Well done, all.
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Chris Thilk 
Chris,
I must respectfully disagree with your point about audience awareness concerning the ceremony, or lack thereof. There are many awards that most people never see that still make sense for studios to advertise: SAG, DGA… not to mention all the film festival awards and official selections.
I think the majority of people outside this industry are only slightly aware of the strike and not at all aware of the GG’s role in the struggle, so they’ll just assume they missed it or their Tivo didn’t catch it – and still be impressed by a win.