The Oscars 2015 has a decent list of tracks up for Best Original Song—"Glory" by Common and John Legend, Glen Campbell's "I'm Not Gonna Miss You," Adam Levine's "Lost Stars," Rita Ora's "Grateful," and the "Everything Is Awesome" collaboration between Tegan and Sara and The Lonely Island—but how does a win affect sales of the song?
We just published Billboard's findings when it came to how Grammys performances affected sales of the respective songs, and now the publication has produced results for how a win in the category helped sales for the following sales period. One thing's for sure...a win definitely helps. All five of the last Best Original Song victors saw an increase both during the week of the ceremony and a bigger boost in the week after. The rate of increase was all related to how big the song was prior to the ceremony, of course.
For example, "Let It Go" from Frozen had by far the smallest increase in sales from a percentage standpoint when it won last year, growing "only" around 45 percent from before the ceremony to after. However it was easily the best-selling of any of the winners listed, moving 125,000 downloads in the week prior to The Oscars and 185,000 afterward. After all, it was one of the most viral songs of the last 14 months. Adele had the closest week in terms of total sales following the win for her "Skyfall," which received 105,000 downloads in the immediate aftermath. That totaled just less than a 200 percent sales increase from the 36,000 in downloads in the week prior to the event.
Less popular songs got less overall sales, but still got massive percentage increases thanks to the low initial sales. Ryan Bimgham's "The Weary Kind," from Crazy Heart, saw a 220 percent increase to 16,000 in sales, while "Man or Muppet" form The Muppets and Randy Newman's "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 had percentage increases of at least 300 percent (actual numbers aren't available as Billboard deemed them "negligible" so the actual totals could be in the thousands).
It's tough to tell if a live performance at the show leads to higher spikes. Again, Idina Menzel and Adele were already popular, while Newman did appear at the 2011 show without a massive number of downloads as a result.
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