Extravagant Gift Bags and The Oscars.

[frndshpcptn]

This is a very, very common practice in PR.

You gift your products to celebs in gift bags or in award show green rooms. If you are able to snag a photo of a celeb wearing/using your product or service you can service the photo on the "wire" and media will pick it up along with a caption that say "XX was seen in L.A. wearing her new X." Or, a hotel can say in a media pitch that X celeb stayed at the resort.

You may not think it is effective - but it sure works with the 18-34 market. Think of how many celeb mags/websites exits just to show photos of stars. Girls in that age group eat up the photos and tend to go out and purchase those products to be like the celebs they look up to...

It's very effective.

 

[mainewmn]

What I would like to see is one of the stars to walk out of the show and hand the contents of the goody bag to the people standing outside.

 

[frndshpcptn]

They generally give a lot of the products to their assistants.

 

[AMcaptured]

Since Hollywood is morally corrupt, I am sure those on the inside see absolutely nothing wrong with it. However, they are all hypocrits so I wouldn't expect them to be giving anything away to the poor unless there was a crew from ET standing around filming them. Celebrities don't even do charity benefits unless all of their expenses are paid and they recieve a fee. I can't imagine they would give away a precious iPod. They probably save half the gifts and give them to their illegal, cheap household staff at Christmas so they don't have to personally spend a dime on them.

Just my opinion.....

 

[eclectics]

Since Hollywood is morally corrupt, I am sure those on the inside see absolutely nothing wrong with it. However, they are all hypocrits so I wouldn't expect them to be giving anything away to the poor unless there was a crew from ET standing around filming them. Celebrities don't even do charity benefits unless all of their expenses are paid and they recieve a fee. I can't imagine they would give away a precious iPod. They probably save half the gifts and give them to their illegal, cheap household staff at Christmas so they don't have to personally spend a dime on them.

Just my opinion.....

Wow! What a totally broad sweeping, and untrue btw, statement!

 

[frndshpcptn]

They give a lot of the gifts to their staff - who don't make THAT much money and generally aprreciate these thing

 

[AMcaptured]

Wow! What a totally broad sweeping, and untrue btw, statement!

And how do you know its an untrue statement? Are you a celebrity or work for one?

If you went on any game show or went to a casino and won more than $1200.00, you would have to pay taxes on those winnings. Why should a celebrity be given a loot bag and not pay tax on it? There needs to be some accountablilty. They aren't recieving free perfume samples at Sephora, they are recieving literally thousands of dollars of merchandise for performing a service, it should be considered payment for services rendered.

 

[jennobrn01]

Am I right to assume they give these bags to everyone in the audience? Then I would imagine there are some who could not afford the tax on the items. I also heard on the news that the items would be taxed, and that some would have to return the bags because they couldn't afford it. The stars that bring their children with them...I'm sure the kids are tickled with the bags. Wait no, I guess they can "afford" Ipods too.

 

[Banshee]

I'm not disagreeing with you statement, just adding this thought......How about a gift bag with a bunch of cards in it saying....in lieu of your three night stay, IPOD, etc. our company (Apple, Starwood, etc.) has donated X dollars to the following charities.

I'd like to see that publicity.

I sooooo agree with you I was just saying this to my DH I mean come on these people can afford these things if they dont already have them! Each one of these stars has something they support wether it be cancer or child abuse.... Donate the money spent on these items to the star's fav. charity! I was reading in people that only 20% of the stars that received the hawaii vacation actually went on it!! But 80% redeemed voucher for the $600 Krupps coffee maker Guess they like their coffee as much as me!!

 

[clh2]

I just read yesterday that the IRS has stated that they will "now be taking a closer look at" these gift bags. I think they called it SWAG or something like that.

I heard that as well!

 

[eclectics]

And how do you know its an untrue statement? Are you a celebrity or work for one?

If you went on any game show or went to a casino and won more than $1200.00, you would have to pay taxes on those winnings. Why should a celebrity be given a loot bag and not pay tax on it? There needs to be some accountablilty. They aren't recieving free perfume samples at Sephora, they are recieving literally thousands of dollars of merchandise for performing a service, it should be considered payment for services rendered.

They are not winnings or payment. They are gratuities given out by various companys of their own valition. They were not solicited by the celebrity. Rather to dissect each sentence of your previous post, I'll just say there are many celebrities that give their time and money generously to many needy causes, and lots of them do it under the radar and they neither want nor expect publicity. To broadly claim ALL celebrities are morally corrupt, hypocrites, and never do charity events without getting a fee is just plain ridiculous. Lastly, a word of unsolicited advice; if Hollywood bothers you that much that you would say the things you did, perhaps it's not a good idea to open up and read a thread discussing it.

 

[agnes!]

The audience does not get a goody bag .

The presenters get a goody bag(I think worth at least $30-50K, but can't remember where I read that) and the nominees get a different/more expensive goody bag. According to some sources the nominees' bags are worth more than $100K and might be closer to $150K.

I read up on this "Oscar swag" phenomenon, it all started innocently enough in 1989 and has since morphed into an entire industry known as 'gifting'.

agnes!