Academy Award Giveaways
The Academy Awards are just about a month away, but reports of the giveaways for attendees and entertainment journalists alike are beginning to surface. However, industry professionals who are voting for nominees are left out of this celebration of swag, but the writers covering the films will get some pretty cool stuff.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Academy prevents studios from sending gifts to Oscars' voters, but in order to appeal to the writers—and maybe reach voters indirectly—the studios give away items relating to their films. Traditionally, items have related loosely to the movie they promote, such as a ukelele from "The Descendants" or a hamburger phone like the one used in "Juno."
This year, journalists will receive a mini statuette of the title character in Michael Keaton's "Birdman" from Searchlight that recites lines from the movie. Other interesting giveaways include a knife advertising Open Road Films' "Chef", black-and-white chocolate bars for Relativity Media's "Black or White", a wrestling sweatshirt from Sony for "Foxcatcher" and a personalized LEGO character from Warner Bros.' "The LEGO Movie."
A representative from Fox Searchlight—the studio responsible for the hamburger phone and ukelele promotions—said that the goal of these giveaways is to encourage journalists to cover a film, often before its release.
As for attendees, the contents of the usually-lavish swag bag hasn't been revealed yet, but the value of last year's gift set hovered around $85,000.
Brendan Menapace is the content director for Promo+Promo Marketing.