Social Media Analysis

The Primetime Emmy Awards broadcast is a primetime television event that companies in years past used to advertise their brands. The broadcast typically airs in a time slot that is conducive to reaching large amounts of consumers, but social media changed the advertising dynamic and the preferred means of advertising in recent years. The Emmy Awards and the time slot of broadcast generally reaches millions of viewers each year making it a smart advertising investment; however, the advent of social media makes an investment in television advertising incomplete as a sound advertising strategy on its own. Instead, a sound business advertising strategy includes both television and social media outlets to broaden the reach of the company’s brand.

The company prides itself on its legendary technological and engineering edge that has consistently set the company apart from its competitors by appealing to discerning consumers and fulfilling a niche in the automobile industry. Audi directly competes with Germany luxury automobile companies Mercedes and BMW, and on a broader scale, with Lexus, Cadillac, and Lincoln. Like any business in today’s marketplace, Audi has taken to social media to advertise its brand image in addition to conventional television advertising. Audi’s concerted effort to penetrate the market and expand its appeal beyond luxury sports car enthusiasts was on full display during the primetime Emmy award presentation. Audi highlighted its brand during the presentation through commercials during the broadcast, but the company went a step further as the title sponsor for the

While the ratings for the Emmy broadcast were down 4% from a year ago (Collins, 2016) drawing only 11.3 million viewers (Koblin, 2016), Audi’s Emmy advertising goal seemed largely successful based on social media mentions and brand popularity. According to Google Trends, interest in the brand Audi on September 18th surged beginning at 6:00 PM and peaking at 10:00 PM. See Appendix C. This time period and peak in interest in the Audi brand corresponds directly to the red carpet pre-broadcast and the Emmy broadcast in primetime. While the Emmy broadcast drew its lowest viewership in the broadcast’s history, the largest viewer segment during the broadcast was in the 18-49 demographic where the broadcast garnered a 2.8 rating and 9% share or 3.6 million viewers of that demographic (Porter, 2016). The 18-49 demographic corresponds well with Audi’s target market and according to a Forbes interview with Audi USA CEO Scott Keogh, the 18-49 demographic consistently represents 50% of the company’s sales dating back to 2014 (Muller, 2014). In addition to their Emmy sponsorship effort, Audi partnered with Airbnb in a television commercial during the broadcast to link the two brands, and Audi highlighted this collaborative effort on it’ social media pages. Hashtagify, a social media tracking website, showed that the two brands, #audi