'Lord of the Rings' wasn’t the only big winner during Sunday’s Academy Awards® telecast -- online advertisers scored, too.

Who says you can’t multitask with a plate full of sushi and house full of fellow movie buffs?

According to a Claria study, more than 31 percent of Internet users were online while enduring the 4½ hour Academy Awards® show Sunday night, an 11 point hike over last year. That’s good news for the Internet in general, but it’s excellent news for advertisers and movie Web sites (see my awards for interactivity during the show).

Oscar®-related Web site traffic soared like Joan Rivers’ plastic surgery bills both in the four weeks before and during the marathon telecast: 

• Eonline.com spiked an amazing1,910 percent.
• Oscar.com was up 693 percent.
• Yahoo! Movies traffic grew 50 percent from the beginning of show to end. (I inadvertently left Yahoo! Movies out of my awards).
• Eonline.com captured 20 percent of its total Oscar Night® traffic during the E! TV network’s Red Carpet pre-show with Joan and daughter, Melissa.  
• During the broadcast, Oscar.com’s traffic increased 700 percent from its normal daily pattern.

The news was even better for sponsors (if you’ve been holding off on jumping into the online advertising ring with the little gold guy, you might want to get your reservations in now for next year). Here’s how some sponsors did around the big show:

• 74 percent aided recall for Cadillac on Oscar.com
• 52 percent aided recall for Diet Pepsi on Yahoo! Movies
• 47 percent of Diet Pepsi's and 48 percent of Cadillac's sponsorship clickthroughs came on the day of the Academy Awards® .
• HP's traffic leaped 131 percent from Yahoo! Movies, and American Express jumped 105 percent.

"We're pleased that the numbers show our users appreciated the most robust Oscar site to date -- and in true awards fashion, we'd like to thank our sponsors, Diet Pepsi and HP," said Doug Hirsch, GM of Yahoo! Movies.

So what’s the morale to this tale of the budding relationship between a sassy award show, savvy advertisers and the rugged, yet sensitive Web? With apologies to Humphrey Bogart, this should be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Claria Corporation conducted the independent analysis through its Feedback Research Division on Oscar®-related online sponsorships, consumer online behaviors, and TV advertising around the Academy Awards®.)  Claria measured user response to Diet Pepsi's sponsorship of the Yahoo! Movies 76th Academy Awards® Web site and conducted a survey with a sample of more than 300 users who had recently viewed the site.  Claria also measured results of Cadillac's sponsorship of the "Oscar Night®" section of Oscar.com and a second survey was conducted among 100 users who viewed that section. A third survey was conducted among 1,085 users during the Academy Awards.  Finally, Claria assessed Web site traffic of advertisers who ran television ads during the show. ACADEMY AWARD(S)®, OSCAR(S)®, OSCAR NIGHT® and the OSCAR® statuette design mark are the trademarks and service marks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.