Being unmissable is not always good for the brand - sometimes you get the memes you deserve.

As an ex-editor of movie bible Empire, including several years putting on their annual awards show, I feel some sympathy for Will Packer, debut producer of the recent Oscars disastercast.

You want the people in the room to genuinely cheer the winners. (It’s a niche, industry event.) You also want to reflect the opinions of average moviegoers. (Not too niche). And if you’re lucky enough to have a broadcast partner – well, they’ll want a few unmissable moments in the mix.

Given a trio of game hosts and some deserving, diverse winners, is it fair that the 94^th Oscars will only be remembered for Will Smith’s violent stage invasion? Maybe. Maybe not.

But even before the former Fresh Prince went full Philly, the Oscars had tripped more than enough wires to spook every brand chasing mass audiences in a fragmented media landscape.

Two witless Twitter polls ­– conducted principally to wedge 2021’s one genuine blockbuster – Spider Man: No Way Home into the show – were hijacked by the activist fan-base of Marvel’s main rival, DC, handing a pair of “awards” to Zack Snyder without attracting so much as a clap in the room. When it came to the “fan favourite film”, Johnny Depp’s passionate defenders even managed to sneak his obscure war photographer drama Minamata in at number 3 – which is about the same number of people who saw it at the cinema.

Meanwhile, a controversial decision to hand out technical awards in the “golden hour” before ABC’s live telecast only served to rob the audience of seeing six gongs go to the only other populist movie on the menu – Dune. Did this crude editing shorten the show? No. Did it feel odd and jagged as a viewer? Yes – just as Steven Spielberg himself warned it would.

Indeed, while nobody could have predicted exactly how the 94^th ceremony would drive off the road, seasoned awards-season observers have been rubber-necking a slow-motion car crash for months now.

Pressure from ABC to juice viewing figures that have been dwindling for years reached full-on panic after Covid cramped Oscars’ style in 2021. New producer Packer – the hitmaker behind Friday night movies such as Girls Trip, Ride Along and Straight Outta Compton – was hired ostensibly to woo a Gen Z audience who have about as much interest in overlong live television spectacles as they do in movies not featuring a friendly-neighbourhood webslinger.

The result was a live show that pleased nobody and seemed at times to hate both itself and its own hardcore fanbase. (Speaking as one – we love the Production Design award). And all this is without the whiplash of watching Will Smith picking up an Oscar just 15 minutes after handing out a slap.

Brands need to lean-into fragmentation

Building inauthentic bridges to fringe audiences is dangerous for any brand - even those that used to represent the acme of mainstream mass. The Oscars was an industry shindig that stepped into primetime in an era of limited, linear media channels and colossal collective experiences. The truth is that the mass media landscape has now fractured into a long-tail of sub-cultures and curated communities that it would be hard to second guess or cater for – who knew Depp fans were so deeply committed? Today, the Superbowl stands alone as a live event with must-see ad spots. Why? Because it has one half-time. Believe me, the Oscars has twenty.

No brand is big enough to fight media fragmentation. Instead, brands would do better to lean into it. Indeed, in a dark irony, you need only look at just how many memes Smith spawned to see the raw power of Oscar in social channels. The Oscars still commands whole news cycles with the potential to drive enough earned media in a day to power most brands for a lifetime. Rather than chase audience peaks that are not coming back – The Academy should continue to actively seed viral content. A little-brother BTS show streamed simultaneously on social with more songs and less talky bits? Why the hell not?

No brand can stand still and constant innovation in the margins is a must. Oscar purists were upset that “influencers” were invited to the show for the first time – but compared to the Twitter polls their integration turned out to be pretty seamless. And if it wins additional reach without gate-crashing the main event, movie lovers should – as poor Packer hoped for the show – unite.

The Oscars is a mass brand – without or without a mass audience for ABC’s live telecast. There are memes enough for all. The movie nerds who love the show can rage over whether Kristen Stewart should have beaten Jessica Chastain to Best Actress at the same time as fashionistas can admire her short shorts. And you can feed all these communities with targeted content.

What you can’t do is sacrifice brand authenticity chasing phantom audiences or historic peaks. You can’t pretend fragmentation does not apply to you. No brand can afford to focus solely on destination content anymore, and it is therefore unwise to let a single channel dictate your strategy – even a broadcast channel. You need to incubate authentic ideas in owned channels, where you dictate the terms, and then break into target channels through credible partnerships.

Indeed, in a year when a streaming service won its first Best Picture Oscar (Apple in an upset for Coda) the Oscars would perhaps be better off ignoring viewing figures altogether and going behind a paywall itself next year – somewhere where it can continue to curate its loyal audience, care for the core brand and quietly build a massive meme factory that is far less mean than the slap in the face that was 2022.