Inside the $350,000 Oscar Nominee Gift Bag—and the Companies Paying for the Exposure

These fast-growing brands are likely investing thousands to put their products in front of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

BY ANNABEL BURBA, EDITORIAL ASSISTANT @ANNIEBURBA

Illustration: Inc.; Photos: Courtesy The Academy Awards, Distinctive Assets; Solomon203 via Wikimedia Commons

Timothée Chalamet might not have gone home with an Oscar last night, but he didn’t leave the award ceremony empty-handed, thanks to Distinctive Assets. The Los Angeles-based marketing agency assembles luxurious, six-figure gift bags (which aren’t affiliated with the Oscars) for nominees of the most competitive Oscars categories, including best actor and best director.

This year, the gift bag included products and vouchers—everything from edible gold-covered pretzels to a prenuptial agreement to a free stay in Ibiza with up to 16 guests—worth nearly $350,000 in value. Three Inc. 5000 companies made the cut: HydroJug, Beekeeper’s Naturals, and SkinnyDipped.

Ogden, Utah-based HydroJug, which recently went viral for its spillproof travel cup, ranked No. 33 on Inc.’s annual list of the 5,000 fastest-growing private U.S. companies in 2021, No. 119 in 2022, and No. 3,328 in 2025.

Beekeeper’s Naturals, a natural remedy brand based in Covina, California, made the Inc. 5000 for the first time last year, ranking at No. 1,085. 

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Seattle-based food brand SkinnyDipped is a five-time honoree, landing at No. 32 in 2019, No. 292 in 2020, No. 3,432 in 2022, No. 3,375 in 2023, and No. 3,041 in 2024.

Brands pay Distinctive Assets to include their products in its gift bags. Although it’s unclear how much the agency charged companies this year, Jan Lewis of Jan Lewis Designs previously told Inc. that the service ran her about $2,500 in 2018, plus product costs.

Bianca Schlesiger, a former marketing manager at portable vaporizer company Haze Technologies, told Inc. around the same time that “each company negotiates differently” and the price of inclusion “certainly was not cheap for us.”

Both Schlesiger and Lewis seemed disappointed with the results of the gift bag. Haze Technologies “did not receive nearly as many mentions as we would have hoped,” Schlesiger said. According to her, the company included a small flyer with its marketing team’s contact information in hopes of forming relationships with the celebrities that received the gift bag. “We never received a response, which is disappointing,” she said, “but we also understand the nominees are bombarded with promo items and gifts.”

Lewis added that while “the gift bag as a whole got a lot of press,” her products were picked up by several media outlets during only one of the three years she participated in the gift bag. Even then, she said, “none of it resulted in any financial gain.”

The preferred-rate deadline to apply for the 2026 Inc. 5000 is Friday, March 20, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply here.

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