It’s Academy Awards season, and a raft of consumer-goods companies that are outside the inner circle of official sponsors are angling to snag some Oscar glow.
The outsiders making a splash in awards season glitz include a fabrics maker revealing winner colors and video streaming program guide Clix (see featured image) with its own rankings of actresses.
Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty issued a press release March 8 saying it provided insurance services for five of the 10 pictures nominated for Best Picture Oscar. Allianz is the Munich-based insurance giant that is big in the dicey world of covering Hollywood. A few years ago, nonprofit Toastmasters International ranked what it called the most celebrated Oscars acceptance speeches.
Not official sponsors, they are turning heads and build awareness by attaching to the edge of the awards-media ecosystem.
Around the Oscars and other awards, luxury goods marketers, in particular, create an annual cottage industry since the Oscars awards are a showcase for swank fashion. Luxury brands without official sponsor status sometimes barge into the event itself. For example, celebrities are wooed to wear fashion and jewelry in red carpet appearances and at the awards. Later, marketers such as Platinum Guild International USA publicize usage of their brands by celebrities.
Product placement specialists set up gift-basket suites to distribute branded products free to celebrities near events to create a Hollywood buzz. These are also known as goody or swag bags.
“Gift bags for Hollywood awards and top film festivals often contain items worth tens of thousands in aggregate, and values can be in the thousands of dollars for lesser fests,” says the third edition of “Marketing to Moviegoers.” “Items include coupons for free cosmetic surgery, designer sunglasses, handheld electronic devices, beauty products, perfume, free spa vacations, free salon visits, free meals at swank restaurants, and clothing accessories such as silk scarves, jewelry, and expensive watches.”
In time for this Oscars season, Dalston Mill Fabrics calculates that black and gold are the most promising colors to wear to snag awards. “Dalston Mill Fabrics analyzed every dress or outfit worn by each winner of a ‘Best Actress’ and ‘Best Supporting Actress’ Academy Award in recorded history,” says a March 7 press release.
The Dalston Mill Fabrics initiative worked. The fabric marketer’s findings on colors in relation to Oscar wins got picked up by Entertainment Weekly and other news publishers.
Streaming program-guide Clix unveiled its list of Hollywood’s “Fab50 Women” — naming Michlle Yeoh, Cate Blanchett and others. Thus, Clix creates its own celebrity ranking, which goes back to at least 1940 when the first “best dressed” lists of the rich and famous were publicized.
Clix says that Fab50 Women is a “tribute to International Women’s Day on March 8 and Women’s History Month,” in its March 7 press release that doesn’t mention the Oscars awards season. Clix bills itself as a consumer program guide with content info about Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock and AMC+.
Of course, Oscars sponsor the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) has a small group of official consumer-goods sponsors. These include Swarovski crystal; wine partner Clarendelle & Domaine Clarence Dillon; Rolex wrist watches; Chanel fragrances; pharmaceutical Pfizer; and others.
In 2022, AMPAS created the new job of executive vice president-chief revenue officer and business development to cultivate sponsorships. Overall, Oscars-related revenue amounted to $137.1 million in 2022, mostly for TV telecast rights and recovering from a nose-dive in the pandemic.
AMPAS protects its trademarks and in 2016 sued a gift bag company for what it claimed was infringing on official Academy branding in its unofficial gifting efforts. Also, Oscar honorees are told that nominees and winners have no rights to Academy Awards trademarks and other intellectual property. The Oscar brand portfolio is the property of AMPAS, which licenses limited usage rights to its pool of official sponsors that pay for the privilege.
Alas, the gift basket industry suffered a blow in Hollywood at the hands of the taxman. “Goodies bags are on the decline after the Internal Revenue Service mounted a crackdown in 2006 to assess taxes on these gifts,” says “Marketing to Moviegoers.” “The result that swag-bag issuers give recipients the standard IRS Form 1099 that specifies the fair market value as income to be declared on taxes.”
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