Lash Fary, founder of Distinctive Assets, shows items to be included in the 2021 Academy Awards gift bag in Los Angeles, California. Reuters/FILE
Explained: The gift bags, doled by a company called Distinctive Assets, work on smart marketing. Brands pay an exorbitant fee to be included in hopes that celebrities will promote them
One may not win the Oscars’ golden trophy, but there’s a prize for everyone – the ostentatious, unbelievably expensive ‘gift bag’ doled out by the Sultan of Swag. A company called Distinctive Assets, known for its often contentious gift bags to nominees – based on a unique marketing model – this time will give out a range of ‘gifts’ valued at $126,000 or Rs 1.03 crore.
What will it include? As per a report by the Guardian, it will include “Japanese milk bread, a three-night stay for eight people on a volcanic Italian island, liposuction” and much more. The Academy is not affiliated with this gift bag but the company sends these to the the acting and directing nominees.
So How Does it Work? News18 Explains the Workings of this Mind-boggling Oscars Tradition
A Marketing Gimmick
Lash Fary, the founder of Distinctive Assets, runs these gift bags on a unique marketing model.
According to a report by Marketing Brew, brands pay a $4,000 (approximately Rs 3.28 lakh) to have their product/service in the bag, in hopes of an investment opportunity. It is however, not guaranteed whether the celebrity will use the product (or take the trip). If they do, they MIGHT post about it, and that is a lucrative enough opportunity for brands.
Marketing Brew explains that when Fary started out with Grammy gift bags, brands were not totally on board. “Twenty-three years ago, it was a very different landscape. It’s not like brands understood, ‘Okay, so I’m gonna pay you a fee and give you free products to give to people who can afford to buy it’,” he told the publication.
But now, even after running into trouble with the Academy (and the IRS), brands pay $4,000 to secure a spot in the hamper, the report says. According to a separate report by Entrepreneur, it can cost a firm between $5,000 and $20,000 to feature their products in the Oscars goodie bag.
What is in the Gift Bag This Time?
According to a Variety report, this year’s gift bag includes:
- luxurious skincare products
- bath ritual sets
- celebrity-founded tequila
- Luxury vacations to Italy and Canada
- Art Lipo body sculpting
- high-tech meditation orb
- Flip flops
- Various luxury food items such as honey, biscuits and more
Who is Getting These Gift Bags This Time?
The famous “Everyone Wins” gift bags are only offered to the top 25 acting and directing nominees, the report by Variety explains.
This year, among those who will be honored are Austin Butler, Colin Farrell, Cate Blanchett, Ana de Armas, Michelle Williams, Michelle Yeoh, Judd Hirsch, Angela Bassett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Todd Field and Steven Spielberg.
What are the Past Controversies These Gift Bags Have Run Into?
- Bad Brands: According to a Vox report, the Academy in 2016 launched a lawsuit against Distinctive Assets, alleging trademark infringement and harm to the Academy’s reputation. The bags that year contained a few “unsavoury” goods, such as marijuana vape pens, sex toys, and a “vampire breast lift,” which the Academy allegedly did not want to be associated with in the public, the report says. Diversity-focussed groups have also attacked the bags and their ‘extravagant show of excess’.
- These Items are Taxable: The contents of these gift bags, including vacations and services, are taxable as income under the federal tax code, Vox explains. Once the IRS tightened down on taxing the contents of gift bags in 2006, the Academy decided to stop handing them out because “it seemed a little wrong to convey a gesture of thanks that subsequently carried with it a tax duty.” The Academy and the IRS struck an arrangement that exempted beneficiaries prior to 2005 from paying taxes, but 2005 gift recipients received a 1099 letter in the mail that year.
- ‘Disgusting and Disgraceful’: Celebrities are occasionally obliged to decline gift bags because they have signed competing sponsorship deals, the report explains and some donate theirs. But there are also some who reject the idea of the bags on moral grounds, in 2007, Edward Norton termed them “disgusting and disgraceful,” urging that the Academy instead make a charitable contribution in the winners’ names.
The Weirdest Gift Bag Items So Far
- The 2021 Oscars gift bag included a plastic surgery operation at Art Lipo and a PETA emergency hammer to break car windows to save hot dogs, and molecular hydrogen water.
- The 2019 Oscars goodie bag was worth at roughly $100,000, and had cannabis theme, in light of the legalisation of cannabis in California. As a result, the nominees were given access to the elite MOTA Los Angeles (a cannabis-friendly social club), a CBD-infused anti-aging treatment, and cannabis edibles, says a report by Glamour.
- The 2016 Oscars goodie bag cost $232,000, making it their most expensive swag bag ever. According to Harper’s Bazaar, it included a Vampire breast lift (worth $1,900), a 10-day VIP trip to Israel ($55,000), a 15-day private walking tour of Japan ($54,000), and a Nuelle Fiera vibrator ($250).
- The 2013 Oscars gift bag was the cheapest in five years, costing only $45,000. A six-pack box of Naked brand condoms, a $4 bottle of Windex Touch-Up Cleaner, a Vampire facelift, and some electronic cigarettes were among the unusual gifts, the Glamour reports.
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