Like the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards broadcast is prime commercial real estate, and this year at least two brands made a splash with cinematic two-minute spots.

In Canada, Toyota via Saatchi & Saatchi launched a 15-week multimedia campaign for the 2007 Camry with the :120 "What You Want Is What You Need", directed by Marcel Langenegger for Circle Productions.

"It was designed to be sort of the line in the sand, to tell people what the campaign is all about...we just wanted to find a way to say 'Think about [the Camry] differently'," says Saatchi writer/CD Simon Creet.

The film, narrated by Canadian actor Colm Feore and shot by Oscar-nominated DP Dante Spinotti, depicts the towns of Want (all affluence-fueled hedonism) and Need (where careful, considered choices rule). A female from Need and a male from Want escape their city limits, re-emerging in the new Camry, to the delight of the townsfolk. The upcoming :30 and :60 spots will feature re-purposed material from the :120.

American Express' "My life. My card" campaign via Ogilvy & Mather New York was given a two-minute tune up on Oscar night with a spot directed by The Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan. Filmed over two days, the spot depicts the director sitting in a restaurant, watching all sorts of bizarre happenings around him (a baby carriage jetting by unattended; a man choking seemingly at the will of his disgruntled companion). Oh, and he pays for his meal with Amex.

Choosing the night that Hollywood celebrates its own to air these epic spots makes perfect sense, and from a demographic perspective, the bang for the buck seems quite loud indeed.

"Take the idea of five million people watching it at one time," says Saatchi Canada CEO/ECD Brett Channer. "And the amount of press we got before it aired - there was an acknowledgment that someone was trying something different."

Saatchi & Saatchi> http://www.saatchi.com
Ogilvy & Mather> http://www.oglivy.com