While Barbie easily won the summer blockbuster movie race, topping more than $1.34 billion in global ticket sales, Oppenheimer won the race in the most advertising exposure on TV. garnering nearly double the number of movie trailer ads of every other summer blockbuster, according to AdImpact.
AdImpact tracked 419,000 ad airings on television promoting 45 movies released between May 1st and August 16th.
The debut of Oppenheimer and Barbie on the same day in theaters sparked the popular social meme of Barbenheimer that boosted the profile of both movies and helped both of them perform better than expected.
The meme also helped revitalize the overall theatrical box office, which has struggled to return to pre-Covid levels.
The AdImpact data showed that Disney distributed half of the top ten films based on movie trailer ad airings: Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, Elemental, Indiana Jones, The Little Mermaid, and Haunted Mansion.
Barbie and Oppenheimer, released on the same date, were extensively compared by AdImpact.
Their data showed Oppenheimer has more than double Barbie’s ad airings on linear television and double Barbie’s television ad impressions.
Utilizing AdImpact’s CTV measurement technology with data partner Inscape, Oppenheimer’s ads on CTV netted 28 million more impressions than Barbie’s CTV ads.
However, while Oppenheimer more than doubled Barbie’s traditional ad airings, Barbie has made more than $1B in the global box office. Barbie’s commercial success as the projected highest-grossing film released this year despite their television ad performance suggests a differentiated marketing focus with their reported $150 million marketing budget, the researchers reported.
Oppenheimer had a marketing head start over Barbie. Oppenheimer ads began appearing on traditional media beginning on March 12th, with a 15-second ad highlighting the movie’s summer release, the study noted.
Comparatively, Barbie’s first ad dropped on May 21st with an ad that promised views that “if you love Barbie, this movie is for you. And “if you hate Barbie, this movie is for you.” After this point, Barbie’s ad airings on traditional media picked up steam, temporarily surpassing Oppenheimer’s ad airings until Oppenheimer nearly quadrupled its ad airings between July 2 and July 9. While Oppenheimer had more ad airings than Barbie, there are still ongoing ads for Barbie on traditional media, while ads for Oppenheimer ended on July 30th.
