Ellen Was On Stage At Oscars With Samsung, Backstage With iPhone

Samsung’s a big sponsor of the Oscars, to the degree that it even had this year’s host Ellen DeGeneres doing a record-breaking star-studded selfie with a Galaxy phone. But behind the scenes, there’s an iPhone being used. Ellen kicked off the Oscars in her monologue saying that she’d be tweeting during the show and then took […]

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Samsung’s a big sponsor of the Oscars, to the degree that it even had this year’s host Ellen DeGeneres doing a record-breaking star-studded selfie with a Galaxy phone. But behind the scenes, there’s an iPhone being used.

Ellen kicked off the Oscars in her monologue saying that she’d be tweeting during the show and then took a selfie. Then she did another selfie later in the show, surrounded by Hollywood’s finest — one that set a new retweet record.

Both of those were shot with a Samsung, a big Oscars advertiser. Ellen never mentioned Samsung, but it was clear she was using a Samsung phone — perhaps the Samsung Note, it looked to me. Pretty nice placement, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Samsung working in that it was used for making that record-breaking tweet happen.

But Ellen — or at least Ellen’s Twitter account — hasn’t been solely using the Samsung. The iPhone has played a big role in tweets tonight, too. Here’s the rundown.

Starting The Day With The iPhone

Ellen’s first tweet of Oscar day was this:

That tweet was posted not with Samsung but instead with an iPhone, as you can tell when looking at the details through some programs such as TweetDeck:

TweetDeck 6

At 3:51pm PT, she tweeted again:

That was also done using an iPhone.

The Samsung Emerges

Thirty minutes later, the Samsung made its first appearance:

As you can see, suddenly “Twitter for Android” was being used to post to Twitter:

TweetDeck 7

Adobe Social Gets A Shot

When the Oscars started, we got this:

That was done through Adobe Social, which I can see — after scanning through Ellen’s feed — is commonly used for many of her tweets, probably by people who work with her on social media and likely to have scheduled tweets go out at particular times:

TweetDeck-8

Samsung, iPhone, Samsung, iPhone!

Next came her first selfie, which a check showed was posted with Android:

The selfie, by the way, has about 150,000 retweets right now. That would have been huge, if not for her second selfie later.

Her next tweet about pregnant Kerry Washington looking about to “pope” was also posted via Android, and so likely her Samsung:

But then the iPhone came back into use with the tweet after that, a picture of Ellen and Channing Tatum:

As you can see here:

TweetDeck-9

My guess is that the photo was shot by one of Ellen’s assistants or social media people with access to her official Twitter account, though it could be that Ellen herself is double-phoning at the show. After that, a shot of Ellen and supporting actor winner Jared Leto:

That was also done on the iPhone:

TweetDeck-10

Again, this was probably someone working with Ellen but able to post to her account.

Samsung For The Record-Breaker

Then there was the record-breaking star-studded selfie:

Yes, that was indeed posted via Twitter for Android and the Samsung phone:

TweetDeck 12

When the show ended, she’d posted one more photo, of her and Liza Minnelli:

That was also posted using the Samsung.

And a few minutes after the show ended, her “thank you” tweet went up, again using the Samsung:

Samsung For The Cameras; iPhone Behind-The-Scenes

The overall count on Oscar day, from the beginning of the day to the end of the show:

  • Samsung: 5
  • iPhone: 4
  • Adobe Social:1

Overall, nearly a tie for the rival phone makers — though Samsung comes out the winner for all that screen time, I’d say.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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