Thanks to the pandemic, we witnessed the death of many Hollywood traditions. However, the Oscars swag bag wasn’t going down without a fight – and the nominees couldn’t have been happier.
Reuters | Far from a shopping bag, the Oscar swag arrives in multiple luggage bags
What’s the Oscars Swag Bag?
Distinctive Assets – a celebrity and product-placement marketing company – compiles beautiful gift bags before every Oscars come around. For Oscar nominees, there’s no loss as they get to take home one of these exclusive gift bags if the award slips through their fingers. Sounds like a really great deal to us.
The swag bag compiled this year is valued at $205,000, a $20,000 drop as compared to last year. This is the first time Distinctive Assets has let the value dip since 2016, when the company got into a rift with the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts, and Sciences. The issue pertained to the Academy blaming Distinctive Assets for regularly implying the company had a connection with the Academy and that the organizers handed out the gift bags. Additionally, the gift bags received bad press due to their price tags, as they were being handed out to celebrities already in the elite tier. Since then, Distinctive Assets refuses to mention the exact price tag of the gift bag and only mentions that it’s upwards of $100,000. On one occasion, founder Lash Fary outlined that the point of the bag is not to up the price tag each year.
Distinctive Assets | The gift bag for 2021 is titled the “Everyone Wins” gift bag
What Does This Year’s Gift Bag Hold?
Fary claims that the company’s motive is far from saying, “here’s a bag full of free stuff”. Especially this year, in light of the world’s socio-economic climate, the company wished that their giveaway could represent a bigger purpose. To that end, this year’s haul is all from black-owned businesses, female-owned businesses, differently-abled entrepreneurs, and generally companies that give back to the community.
Distinctive Assets | The nominees also get a 4-day stay at Southern California’s Golden Door spa
Who Pays for These Items?
Each brand provides their product as a sponsor, meaning that they individually absorb the cost. This year’s bag holds everything, from amazing chocolate-coated biscuits to expensive personal services, including complimentary project management for a home-building project, free liposuction with cosmetics surgeon Dr. Thomas Su, and workout sessions with celebrity trainer Alexis Seletzky. Starting from $4,000, these sponsorships go up to $25,000.
Extravagant, sure, but it is nothing compared to the $2 million it costs for a 30-second ad placement during the awards.
