The Academy Awards, aka "The Super Bowl for Women", often comes in as the second-most viewed annual TV event. Last year the Oscars bounced back up to 41.3 million viewers, the largest audience they had seen for 5 years, and we’re predicting an even bigger jump this year. But these days if you’re looking for winners, it’s better to bet on engagement than it is on the number of eyeballs watching.

ABC has sold out their 30-second ad spots for a reported $1.7 million each. But while we wait for the numbers to come in, we’d like to point out that the investment of millions of dollars doesn’t have to be done in a vacuum. Engagement metrics can advise advertisers whether they’re making good or bad investments, can be done for any brand, for any media, and – most importantly – can be done before you spend your money.

Bob Hope, the once-perennial host of the Academy Awards, quipped, "At the Academy Award dinners all the actors and actresses in Hollywood gather around to see what someone else thinks about their acting besides their press agents!"

For us that "someone else" is the consumer, via our Customer Loyalty Engagement Index. Last year we offered up some odds on who would win the based on the same loyalty and engagement assessments that correlate so highly with positive consumer behavior and sales. They managed to predict – with 90% accuracy – the recipients of the various Oscars, so here are the odds we came up with for the "big" categories for this Sunday’s event. These calculations are provided for entertainment value only. If you’re making real bets on the outcomes, you’re on your own, much as advertisers without engagement metrics!

BEST PICTURE

127 Hours: 100/1
Black Swan: 40/1
Inception: 50/1
The Fighter: 40/1
The Kids Are All Right: 200/1
The King’s Speech: 2/9
The Social Network: 7/2
Toy Story 3: 150/1
True Grit: 40/1
Winter’s Bone: 150/1

BEST ACTOR

Javier Bardem: 10/1
Jeff Bridges: 25/1
Jesse Eisenberg: 24/1
Colin Firth: 1/33
James Franco: 18/1

BEST ACTRESS

Annette Bening: 13/2
Nicole Kidman: 66/1
Jennifer Lawrence: 28/1
Natalie Portman: 1/12
Michelle Williams: 66/1

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christian Bale: 1/7
John Hawkes: 66/1
Jeremy Renner: 80/1
Mark Ruffalo: 66/1
Geoffrey Rush: 4/1

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams: 33/1
Helena Bonham Carter: 13/2
Melissa Leo: 40/1
Hailee Steinfeld: 3/1
Jacki Weaver: 40/1

BEST DIRECTOR

Danny Boyle: 18/1
Joel & Ethan Coen: 40/1
David Fincher: 5/8
David O. Russell: 66/1
Tom Hooper: 13/10

We wish all the nominees and advertisers "good luck." Actor/Director Clint Eastwood, a 10-time nominee himself noted, "There's a lot of great movies that have won the Academy Award, and a lot of great movies that haven't. You just do the best you can."

With engagement assessments, advertisers can do better than that.