From swank parties to top notch events, there is one thing that shares the spotlight with the celebrities and other attendees — the gift bags.

Gossip columns talk about the stars that got greedy with gift bags and who swiped more than one. The media dissects the contents of the gift bags given in awards and important events. Even the IRS got into the action and have taken notice of the elaborate and even ostentious gift bags that award giving bodies give to presenters and awardees.

As marketers, gift bags can become an important tool to get your product to consumers. Gift bag placement means that your product will be talked about by the media. Imagine the impact if NY Post’s Pagesix reports that Lindsay Lohan asked for not one, but five of your product in the gift bag. That’s worth thousands in free publicity!

I talked with Kelly-Sue Chobotiuk, creator of Boo Boo Bear herbs for hurts bears and other products, a few years ago. Her startup business got a big boost after her Boo Boo bear was chosen to be included in the gift bags given during 31st Annual American Music Awards in 2003 . That’s worth a lot of gold in terms of publicity generated for her business. One of the event organizers of the music awards heard of her Boo Boo bears and contacted her, and of course, she jumped on the opportunity. That gift bag placement gave her business a lot of notice and set her off to a good start.

Think out of the box and consider gift bag placement as a publicity tool for your business. There is no centralized directory for upcoming events that need gift bag placements, so you will need to do some legwork asking around how to get your products in the gift bag. But the effort may be well worth it for your business.