• by David Kaplan , February 28, 2005

It's now Monday morning and Hollywood's best and brightest are staggering home from the Vanity Fair Oscar party following the Academy Awards.

Elsewhere across America, the broadcast's largely female audience is preparing to shop--and, according to a survey conducted on behalf of MediaPost by Scarborough Research, the shopping patterns of the women who watched the Academy Awards reveals that they will likely be making high-end purchases in the apparel, health and beauty, and wine categories. (Scarborough culls its research from an ongoing national telephone survey of over 200,000 adults, covering 75 local U.S. markets).

While it's uncertain how much attention the Costume Design category garners, women who watch the Academy Awards are approximately twice as likely as all consumers to have spent $500 or more on women's apparel during the last year, in categories such as business clothing and casual clothing/sportswear, Scarborough's survey said.

And perhaps the Academy could add a food-related category, as female Oscar-watchers are 8 percent more likely than all consumers to have eaten in a sit-down restaurant five or more times during the past month. In particular, coffee houses, Italian restaurants, and upscale restaurants rank among the most popular dining out choices of women who tune into the Oscars broadcast.

Hair and make-up are essential to movies, and apparently, they are just as crucial for women who care about films. Scarborough's research has found that women Academy Awards viewers are 48 percent more likely than all consumers to have made purchases of cosmetics, perfumes, or skin care items. Plus, they are 42 percent more likely than all consumers to have bought health and beauty items on the Internet during the past year.

One of the smaller movies to get a lot of attention has been Alexander Payne's "Sideways," about two guys on a weeklong trip through California wine country. No word yet as to whether the film's highlighting of the joys of Pinot Noir have registered with women, but Scarborough reports that diet soda and bottled water are popular non-alcoholic beverage choices of the women who watch the Academy Awards, and champagne/sparkling wine and blush/rose wine are well-liked alcohol beverages of these consumers.