TIFF 2015 | The Business of Gifting Lounges

Vv Magazine‘s editor-in-chief Nicki Laborie reports on the city’s top gifting lounges and talks shop with the PR companies behind them. 

If you’re in the media, movie or PR industries, you are very aware of the gifting lounges that are held during all the big movie award shows and festivals. However for those who aren’t in the business, gifting lounges are not necessarily in their wheelhouse of knowledge. For many, the thought of giving celebrities gift bags which are sometimes worth up to $200,000 in products and services seems ludicrous. However, the business of the gifting lounge is no joke and the ROI can sometimes be better than any advertisement investment.

The concept of the gifting lounge goes back decades in the US thanks to the many awards shows and film festivals that go on annually. Celebrities are wined and dined in various hotels and offered anything from trips to resorts in Bali, to the latest in skincare and full beauty treatments and touch ups.

In Canada, the concept is still fairly new with the first-ever gifting lounge having taken place eleven years ago. After Debra Goldblatt-Sadowski, owner of top public relations firm Rock-It Promo, had been lugging gifts offered to one of her clients from hotel to hotel she wondered what they did in the States when it came to gifting celebrities. One chat with friend Leesa Butler about American gifting lounges and the two decided to follow suit and create the Tastemakers Lounge. Today, this is one of the most sought after TIFF lounges attended by A-list actors, top-tier media and influencers.

“Gifting lounges are an opportunity for brands to elevate their name and get product in front of influential people,” she tells me. “The movie industry looks glamorous from the outside but it’s a gruelling business. We invite filmmakers and actors to celebrate their accomplishments and give them a refuge from the craziness.”

Another one of the Canadian pioneers of the gifting lounge is Natasha Koifman, owner of NKPR, who created the IT Lounge ten years ago. However she insists the term “gifting lounge” is inaccurate. “It shouldn’t be called a gifting lounge. We create and curate a space where celebrities, influencers and media can come, enjoy and be introduced to products and brands that they may not have known about.”

A decade later, Goldblatt-Sadowski and Koifman are not alone in creating TIFF lounges. This year the festival saw over a dozen lounges all ranging from curated experiences for discovering brands, to full styling and beauty treatments including mani-pedis and up-dos. It’d come as no surprise if spas saw a decrease in sales that week…

So the question is, what do brands get out of participating in these lounges? Is there a return on the not-so-cheap investment? Most of these will run a brand anywhere between $2500 and $25,000 to participate and there’s no guarantee of exposure.

“You can’t predict the return but I think there is a product for everyone to fall in love with. The brands get access to celebrities and they have the opportunity to present themselves to talent,” Koifman says. “Ed Norton came into the IT Lounge many years back before he ran his first marathon. He ended up spending an hour and a half talking to the rep of Brooks about running and shoes. So the ROI is really that – getting your brand in front of a celebrity who will potentially end up loving it.”

Another Toronto public relations firm took a different road to the gifting lounge in 2010. Esther Garnick, owner of EGPR, loved the idea of the lounges but saw the growing saturation in that realm and started the Essentials Lounge, geared towards the media and their needs. While it’s only on for one day, it is built to help media get through the busy schedule of TIFF and provide them with all their essentials.

“Celebrity lounges were really becoming the norm in 2010 and press were watching celebs walk away with thousands of dollars of product and they work so hard to get “the” story,” Garnick tells me. “We worked with four brands when we started and it got a huge response. It grew and grew and we just did it again and again and now in its sixth year – we bond over this. This is a real passion project for us because it’s fun.”

But most of all, the Essentials Lounge offers brands a way to connect directly with the media – and only the media. The products on display are designed to make the media’s lives easier because while the celebrities have intense schedules, so do the media. And the media can directly write about the products, while it may be more of a gamble with a celebrity.

“The celebrity gifting lounge is a solid formula but brands are looking for a more direct approach to be seen and reach the masses through a platform,” says Garnick. “Sometimes during TIFF, the business of creating these lounges is one tiny acorn on a giant tree, so more often than not TIFF coverage is part one. What we love is that the journalists recognize products, discover products and start using the products. Eventually that turns into residual coverage. It’s a good investment.”

But Goldblatt-Sadowski makes sure to tell me, “Brands have to be careful about which lounges they work with. They have to make sure that the lounges will reach the influence and media they are looking for.”

After watching the amount of new lounges popping up over the years, I do agree that a brand needs to be careful about where they throw their money. TIFF can be very enticing but if a brand signs up with the wrong lounge, it can be very costly for no result.

My conversation with Goldblatt-Sadowski ends with her telling me about a great success story. “A few years back, I was able to seed a Joe Fresh bag into Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s car because they had no time to come into the lounge. One year later we saw photos of their kids wearing Joe Fresh.”

Now that’s a great result.

Related Link: TIFF 2015 – The Best Dressed Stars

What do you think of celebrity and media gifting lounges during TIFF 2015? Let Vv Magazine know in the comments below, or tweet us @ViewtheVibe.