BeritaTREN.COM

What do you give the girl who has everything – dazzling looks, a career as a model-turned-actress and a movie star boyfriend?

Judging by the sackload of freebies that accompanied Rosie Huntington-Whiteley home from the Glamour awards last Tuesday, the answer is beauty products. And jewellery. And chocolates. Oh, and a year’s supply of doughnuts.

The following evening, Pippa and Carole Middleton were seen carrying similar, albeit less bulging, bags of gratis goodies out of a party at London’s Goring Hotel.

It goes without saying that neither Rosie nor the Middletons strictly need the generosity bestowed upon them last week. If they wanted any of the items they received, they could easily afford to buy them.

In Hollywood, the tradition of presenting stars with freebies has spun so far out of control that instead of giving them a lowly bag, luxury brands fill entire ‘gifting suites’ of hotels with goodies for them to choose from. Safari holidays and diamonds worth more than £60,000 are deemed appropriate gifts for A-list names.

Now events in Britain aren’t deemed worth attending if there’s no prospect of leaving with so much swag it takes a team of flunkies to heave it into the limo. Some parties have become legendary for their goodie bag largesse, including the Brits, the Baftas and the GQ Man of the Year Awards, where the combined total of all the bags given out reached £150,000 in 2010.

Never mind that the celebrities will probably end up giving most of it to their cleaner when they get home. If they’re famous and they’ve made the effort to turn up, they deserve it.

According to leading London party organiser Michael Evans: ‘Everyone, no matter how rich and famous, loves leaving an event with a bag full of goodies. I think it reminds people of when they were children and at the end of a party they received a little bag filled with cake and sweets.

‘It’s always fun to receive gifts, especially as a lot of goodie bags contain something new and cool which people may not have heard of yet. Being the first to have something is nice.’

PR consultant Lauren Farrow began her career organising goodie bags for the Brit awards, and remembers the effort she put into making them.

‘I organised holidays to Belize for the celebs and packed bags with items to take with them,’ she says. ‘A fantastic bag will make an event more special. The Glamour awards are known for theirs. One year two people were needed to carry the bag for one of my clients. Celebrities love it.’

Swag bags aren’t handed out merely for the benefit of those who receive them, however. They are perhaps the most brazen example of the marketing phenomenon of recent years: celebrity endorsement.

‘Goodie bags appeared in the Eighties, when major events began to be corporate-sponsored,’ says social commentator Peter York.

‘Since then, corporate branding and PR has become extremely systematic. Brands know it’s very sensible to make sure their products are included in a goodie bag as it’s a simple way to get straight into the hands of exactly the sort of people they want being seen with them.’

The value of someone famous spotted wearing a brand’s items is immense, so if the right stars are invited to an event it is not difficult for organisers to persuade brands to part with their goods.

Despite the economic turmoil, the craze shows no sign of abating for those lucky enough to be deemed worthy. As Peter York says: ‘For unto everyone that hath shall be given.’