"What mystery gifts do celebrities and politicians get in those green rooms where they wait before appearing on television shows?" Jennifer 8. Lee of the Times pays a visit to the set of Stephen Colbert's show and finds bottled water, tooth whitener, Altoids, gum, ground coffee, tooth whitener, and Vodka. [City Room]
With ICQ lending its name to an Israeli toothpaste manufacturer and Google trucking branded ice cream bars to its Mountain View headquarters, no wonder Jimmy Wales is thinking about how Wikipedia can cash in on brand licensing. The only problem: Wales's marketing ideas are as dull as his sexual fantasies. Board games?…
Twittish beauty bloggers are now acting like entitled print-mag beauty editors, the NYT Styles reports, in demanding all the free swag they can stuff into their home offices. Beauty PR companies used to ignore bloggers because, "It didn't seem fair that anyone could say whatever they wanted about a product and have an…
If you're anything like us, even breaking news on Kiefer's freedom, Oscar noms and the snoozefest that is Sundance still leaves us aching for our guiltiest pleasure: Brit Brit updates! So when we heard Mr. Romulus von Stetzelberger, designer of the hat Britney wore in our all-time favorite shot of her, musing on his…
Even if the cancellation of the Golden Globes and its satellite parties had been precipitated by nuclear, rather than labor, Armageddon, you could be sure that a radioactive, iridescent army of swag suite staffers would still be roaming the smoldering Hollywood hellscape, distributing designer jeans, sunglasses,…
The delivery of unbidden swag to Defamer HQ is such a rare occurrence that we momentarily get excited by the unexpected appearance of a package on our doorstep, forgetting that it will invariably contain promotional detritus that some studio was too lazy to throw out on its own and has shipped to us for outsourced…
A reader was so moved by a promotional item a co-worker received for Hilary Swank courageous-white-lady- inspires-inner-city-kids drama Freedom Writers that she found her own writing voice, submitting this report about her disappointment with the shoddily constructed, pungent swag:
Wesley Autrey, who saved another gent by hurling himself to the subway rails and letting a train pass over the both of them, has spent the last week rightly showered with attention, honors, and accolades. To his enormous credit, all the buzz hasn't seemed to dent Autrey's genial, humble demeanor. How can you not…
Despite other instances of lamery (new word!), Radar reports (with major research on PatrickMcMullan.com) on quite the swagfest: last week, eighty of the city's most important arbiters of snobbery were invited on an all-expense-paid trip to Istanbul to celebrate a Turkish department store's collaboration with…
• Actress Kate Hudson didn't separate from Black Crowe husband Chris Robinson because he's a crunchy dirtman and she's, well, Kate Hudson. Us Weekly reports that Hudson's affair with Owen Wilson led to the split — once you climb on the Stallion, there's no climbing off. [Us Weekly]
• Damn the man: the IRS pushes to…
If you've not had it marked on your calendar, from 2 - 4 PM today, flogged and browbeaten assistants everywhere can enjoy a free cup of coffee on behalf of the marketing team behind The Devil Wears Prada. At the very least, think of it as an excuse to take an extra smoke break. According to the release, the…
• For those of you who think Gawker hates everything, we present the picture at right. As of this moment, we fucking love it more than anything in our otherwise empty lives. The nipple-grazing waistband, the faint suggestion of his package, snug like an Almond Joy... Yes, Matt Lauer, you have made our day. God…
So, extremely expensive promotional mints, you've just been stolen from the mailroom at The New York Sun, prompting a frantic these-were-in-no-way-meant-for-staffers email from PR manager Maggie Shnayerson. Where are you going?
In the wake of television upfronts and the wave of small screen stars brought with it, Lucky magazine has a special treat for us all: a video of the swaggy joy within its overly heralded gift suite, where celebrities like Mischa Barton (who likes "skinny jeans and street style"), Jamie-Lynn Sigler, and Felicity…
You'd think that with one foot in the Payola Six scandal and the other soaked with ties to Anthony Pellicano, billionaire Ron Burkle would want to lay low. Au contraire, darlings — he's out and about and, according to our embedded reporters in LA, having quite a good time with the Us Weekly freebies:
As if things aren't already tough enough for the Sun, New York's little right-wing paper that sometimes can, now it's facing a vicious attack from within. This email from publicity chief Maggie Shnayerson was circulated to the staff earlier this afternoon:
• Assuming Tom Cruise does eat placenta, he learned how to serve it courtesy of Vice. It's like Food & Wine for the flesh-eating hipster set, after all. [Viceland]
• How bad are things getting in the world of big-budget beauty pageants? Bad enough that Miss USA contestants are doing photo-ops Mars 2112. [Getty Images
Today's Thursday Styles profiles Lucky beauty director Jean Godfrey-June, whose memoir, Free Gift With Purchase: My Improbable Career in Magazines and Makeup, comes out next week. To which we can only ask, free gifts? Indeed:
In light of the detailed "revelations" that Page Six staffers roll in giant, luxurious piles perks and payola (from clothes and dinners to lapdances and hotels), we here at Gawker think it's time to come clean about our own swag collection. In the interest of disclosure, we've accepted the following freebies from…
