The 68th annual Emmys on ABC featured 58 different brands showing 84 different unique ads. Among the 169 ad airings, the auto, electronic and pharma industry ads led the way.
All told, TV ads appeared on screens 316,897,573 times — 304 million of which were live or same day.
View rates for brands were 87.2% (view rates are the percentage of an ad that, on average, was viewed across all airings of that ad) — shy of the Olympics average of 90%, but above the NFL weekend average of 85%.
The audience was 58% female and skewed older with the 35-and-older demographic representing 73% of the crowd.
On the brand level, Audi, Apple, Samsung, Invokana and AARP ran the most ads. 42 brands ran ads twice.
Samsung and Apple went head to head, with a VR ad from Samsung, “All the Feels,” coming in as the most-seen spot during the evening. Apple didn’t just push the iPhone 7 (4 airings), it invested in James Corden as a pitchman for Apple Music; he joins Drake and Taylor Swift in promoting the service.
ABC used its commercial time to showcase 34 different show promos, representing 4% of the ad inventory, which is far less than the average of around 10% for a network. Speechless, Designated Survivor and Dancing with the Stars were the shows with the most dedicated promo time from the network.
Health-related ads were a theme, with health insurance and pharma brands, including Invokana, Lyrica and Linzess, heavily invested in the Emmys.
Also of note: dog food maker Blue Buffalo showed one of its ads four times. By industry, car makers accounted for almost 13% of ad inventory:
