Loco for Logos

As filmmakers and reporters pack into the Premiere Film & Music Lounge (a.k.a. the Easy Street Brasserie), the lounge’s creator, New York-based “lifestyle marketer” David Manning, marvels at the synergy that surrounds him. A Hummer is parked alongside the red carpet with a sign proclaiming it the official vehicle of the lounge. As celebrities arrive, they’re photographed against a wall featuring the logos of other lounge sponsors -- Michelob, Monster Energy, Mr. & Mrs. T Premium Blend Bloody Mary Mix. Inside, Sony ads play on a Sony flat screen and bottles of Rose’s Cocktail Infusions line the walls (the new mixer is debuting here).

This is what Manning calls “grass-roots branding,” a form of advertising in which consumers “discover the product on their own terms rather than being forced a message. They network it virally among their friends.”

Years ago, the Sundance Film Festival was a quiet gathering in a snowy burg so far from the sequined tentacles of Hollywood that, as publicist Lara Shriftman recalls, an on-call hairstylist was nowhere to be found and everyone drove his own car. This was back before Women’s Wear Daily, Us Weekly and Page Six sent reporters to Park City, before Volkswagen sponsored morning yoga classes, before Black & Decker and Mystic Tan set up shop at the Motorola Lodge, before the Four Seasons dispatched a concierge to the Philips Electronics VIP Lounge, before Cesar became the festival’s official gourmet small-dog food.

This year, the original vision of Sundance, arguably the most influential showcase of independent film, has nearly been drowned in the bacchanal of commercialism. There are more official corporate sponsors of the festival than there are films in dramatic competition, and both have been overtaken by the nonstop partying at the unofficially sponsored lounges, lodges and houses.

“It’s just changed the dynamic of the whole thing. The festival itself used to be more personal,” says Richard Guardian, president of Lightning Entertainment, an independent sales agency that represents producers.

Guardian has been coming to Sundance since 1985 and remembers spending “quality time” with filmmakers and others. But the avalanche of lounges, parties and swag bag giveaways has drawn so many more people to Park City that it’s difficult for industry folk actually to do business here, he says. “It becomes tougher to see films. It becomes tougher to find people. The parties themselves become a distraction to doing business. It reaches a point in the evening where it’s pure party.”

“There’s no way I’d come here just for the festival,” says Brian Lubinsky, a Chicago musician who also came to ski. “A huge number of these movies that are worth seeing I’d be able to see in Chicago anyway and not have to wait in line.”

Michelle Zei, a producer and actress from Los Angeles, came to see her friends’ movie, “Napoleon Dynamite.” “I’ve heard stories where people have waited four hours for a film and still didn’t get in,” she says. “Two years ago, I only had to wait for an hour and a half.” Still, she admits that the product giveaways are one of her “favorite aspects” of the festival.

A product playground

For 10 days every January, Park City teems with filmmakers and celebrities who can lend a company instant cool simply by posing next to its logo. Consequently, Sundance has become synonymous with the term “ambush marketing” and fertile ground for what publicists call “seeding product.”

“The idea behind that is: Control the environment,” says publicist Henry Eshelman. “It is, at the end of the day, a chilly mountain resort. You have a common environment for people to try on clothing or test out electronic equipment or play Xbox. They do interviews there. It’s pretty and comfy and doesn’t look like a trade show environment. And it enables you to control it.”

A celebrity endorsement -- even a passive one in a photograph -- is so valuable in this world that corporations will give away just about anything to lure the stars into their lounges, spas, cafes and restaurants. And if the stars can’t make it, their managers, agents, publicists, stylists and the journalists who document their whims are just as welcome.

As a result, luxury freebies have become so ubiquitous at Sundance that a publicity firm seeking press for a $5,000 gift bag poked fun at its clients (Godiva, Ugg, Cristal ... ) in a release that read: “Swag Hits All Time High With Outrageous Celebrity Gift Bags.” Volkswagen’s “Buzz Bag,” valued at $1,000, is the payoff for select media and celebrities who conduct interviews from the VW Activity Porch on Main Street or while riding around in the company’s new luxury sedan, the Phaeton, or its new SUV, the Touareg.

There are so many sponsored lounges in Park City, complete with cocktails, catered snacks and a cornucopia of freebies, that it’s a wonder anyone ever sees a film. In fact, some never do. “I know plenty of people who have never seen movies there,” says Shriftman.

You can have vodka martinis at the SKYY View Lounge, gather up some free clothes at the Fader/Levi’s Lodge or the Diesel Lodge or the Seven Jeans House, get a photo done at the HP Portrait Studio presented by WireImage, enjoy a soft drink at the WireImage Gallery by Diet Coke with Lime and get a blowout by hairstylist Laurent D. at the Seven for All Mankind House. And for those with small dogs, Cesar hosted a special reception complete with pet psychic available for readings.

“If you wanted to, you could spend a whole day collecting free stuff,” says Eshelman.

Despite the relentless swag-a-thon, Sundance Institute spokeswoman Elizabeth Daly says festival-goers aren’t overwhelmed. According to an institute survey, she says, 80% could name all the official sponsors, and the same number “thought that sponsor support positively impacted the festival.”

Actor Brandon Sacks grew up in Park City and returned this year to network with filmmakers. But the festival is a far different event than it was 10 years ago, he says.

“It was way more authentic,” Sacks says while standing in line outside the Main Street bar Harry O’s. He’s waiting to see one of the Blender Sessions, a series of live musical performances sponsored by the magazine of the same name. Sacks points to the giant signs for Blender hung from the front of the building, then motions across the street to the Riverhorse Cafe, where Target is sponsoring an event for the Independent Film Channel. “Back then,” he says, “it felt more like you were part of something. Now it’s like a facade.”

The Sundance Institute estimates the festival’s annual economic benefit to northern Utah at about $45 million. During the festival, Park City’s population swells to about 40,000, six times the average, and city officials welcome the cellphone-toting, self-important hordes. That’s because Sundance equals “a $25-million spending spree over a 10-day period,” says Park City Chamber Bureau Executive Director Bill Malone. “It’s by far the biggest event of the year.”

In fact, last summer marked the first time the festival’s official sponsors were invited to spend a few days touring Park City and given right of first refusal on lodging and other properties.

It began with Hugo House

The commercial onslaught started five years ago with the Hugo House, a home in Deer Valley that became party central in 1999. Hugo Boss partnered with Motorola and converted the place into a showroom disguised as a lounge.

During the day, celebrities and other VIPs came for the free clothes and cellphones. At night, they came for the party. A giant “Hugo” ice sculpture stood melting in the yard and, after dark, the company’s logo was projected on the sidewalk. The success of the house was measured in press clippings and gossip column items.

“Every time we had an event at that house, we had a line out the front door,” says David Pinsky, Motorola’s director of entertainment marketing. “We found an idea that definitely struck a nerve with festival-goers.”

After the Hugo House success, the Gap, Chrysler, Diesel and Tommy Hilfiger followed with their own houses, bringing with them Reebok, Ray-Ban and Starbucks, among others. By 2001 there were so many sponsored houses that Entertainment Weekly rated them. People started coming to Park City for the parties and the giveaways. The festival was ancillary.

By 2002 the locals grew weary of the rowdy hordes invading their neighborhoods. So last year the City Council began enforcing signage, parking and noise ordinances, and fining companies for using residences for business purposes. “When you’re projecting a Chrysler logo on a home, that is conducting business,” says City Manager Tom Bakaly.

So companies began looking for more public space, near Main Street. The most conspicuous outcome of this is the Village at the Lift, a partnership among Hollywood events producer Jeffrey Best, Fred Segal Beauty Chief Executive Michael Baruch, and Bragman, Nyman, Cafarelli President Chris Robichaud.

The two-story, 30,000-square-foot lodge and ski lift (known the rest of the year as the Town Lift) features a cafe, a restaurant, several shops, a hair salon and a spa. Nearly 30 companies have a presence here. General Motors, Philips Electronics, Columbia House, the Hollywood Reporter, Silk Soymilk, Crown Royal, Fred Segal and Sony PlayStation 2 each paid as much as $150,000 to take over a lounge or restaurant. Twenty others paid about $20,000 to be “sub-sponsors.”

Consequently, there’s a lot of overlap. For instance, at the Columbia House Cafe, films offered by the CD and DVD club are played on Philips flat-screen TVs. Staff from Fred Segal Beauty give Nars makeovers and Orly manicures. As an added bonus, “Access Hollywood” did a few broadcasts from the Village.

“That’s huge,” says Baruch. “We did that because we knew that would attract a lot of the sponsors. We did anything we could do to attract media.”

Not to be outdone, Motorola rented the 30-room Red Stag Lodge in Deer Valley for all ten days of the festival and sold participation rights to a half-dozen other companies, including Kiehls, the new steamed milk beverage Got Steamers?, Xbox, Mystic Tan and Black & Decker.

The place is empty late Tuesday afternoon, but when asked, publicists drop the names of celebrities who had been by earlier in the day: Naomi Watts, Mark Ruffalo, Andre 3000 from OutKast, Aisha Tyler, Peter Krause. They all got free cellphones. They all left with a bag full of free Kiehl’s lotions and shampoos. “One thing we don’t do here, we don’t sell any products,” says Motorola’s Pinsky. “It’s all about promotion.”

Hence the Black & Decker room, which features toasters, coffeemakers and space heaters displayed on decorative tree stumps. The company doesn’t expect to sell anything or even to create “buzz.” The hope, says publicist Jodi Lederman, speaking on behalf of company public relations director Chris Mitchell, is that some entertainment exec will book a Black & Decker product for a TV show, like “Friends,” or the new David Arquette-Courteney Cox home decor program, “Mix It Up.”

“By no means are they trying to say they are there because they fit into the world of film,” says Lederman. “They’re using the environment that surrounds them to be able to showcase what they do.”