A marketing exec called me after reading my posts about the branded merchandise industry (check them out on LinkedIn).

Mid-sized tech company. Six years ordering branded merch.

"I think I've been wasting money," she said. "I need to know how much."

She pulled three years of invoices: $325,000 total.

Then she asked her team what they'd ordered.

Conference tote bags? Vague memory. Client gifts? "I think we did those?" Onboarding kits? "The ones with pens?"

Nobody remembered. $325,000. Three years. Zero clarity.

I told her to call her branded merch distributor and ask five questions:

• Explain our brand story

• Show how our merch reinforced it

• What behavior were we trying to influence?

• How did you measure if it worked?

• What would you change if the goal was retention vs. awareness?

She called back two hours later. "He couldn't answer one. Not one."

She pulled old email threads. Each one identical:

Her: "We need something for our event." Him: "How many? Budget? Timeline?" Her: "150 people, $5K, six weeks." Him: sends catalog links

Zero strategy. Zero discovery. Just: how many, how much, when.

Dozens of orders. $100K+ in his margin.

This is the bottom-feeder business model. It's not consulting. It's order processing.

And the industry protects it. They eliminated barriers to entry, flooded the market with these catalog “slingers” and let them masquerade as "consultants."

She fired him.

He probably replaced her with another unsuspecting customer. That's how this works. They don't need to be good. They just need customers who don't know what questions to ask.

She gave me her next project: desk organizers for top clients announcing a new feature.

Instead of "what's your budget," I asked:

• What's your brand story?

• What do you want clients to do?

• What proves you understand them?

Two weeks after delivery, we'll measure actual outcomes.

Next time she has a project, she'll ask:

• "We're trying to influence X behavior. Could merch help?"

• "What proves we understand our audience?"

• "Show me outcome data"

This is what the industry fears. Not regulation. Not competition. Informed clients asking basic questions their distributors can't answer.

The Challenge:

• Pull your last three invoices.

• Call five people who got the items.

Ask: "Do you still have it? Use it? Remember who sent it?"

If most say no, you're funding someone's six-figure income while they browse catalogs.

Then ask your distributor those five questions.

When they can't answer (and they won't) you'll know exactly how much money you've been wasting.

Your distributor is counting on you never asking.

85% of the industry operates this way. They joined for $500, got catalog access, and now make money from clients who don't know what strategic consultation looks like.

Ask the questions. Fire the order-takers. Demand better.

TL;DR: Most brand work disappears in hours. The stuff that builds trust sticks around for years. If you’re measuring impressions instead of longevity, you’re optimizing for the wrong thing.

I was scrolling through my analytics last week.

Open rates. Click-throughs. Impressions. All the numbers we’re supposed to care about.

Then I looked up from my laptop. Sitting on my desk was a tumbler from a partner we worked with three years ago. I use it every single day.

That tumbler has delivered more “impressions” than any email campaign we’ve ever run. And nobody’s measuring it.

The average social media post lives for a few hours. Email campaigns? Three days, maybe. Digital impressions reset to zero every morning. We’ve gotten incredibly good at creating work that vanishes on schedule.

Physical branded merch doesn’t work that way.

A well-made tumbler gets used daily. A quality hoodie stays in rotation for years. A thoughtful gift sits on someone’s shelf, visible in the background of every Zoom call they take.

When the goal is trust (not reach, not impressions) longevity beats volume every time.

The Permission Test

There’s a moment of judgment when someone receives something physical from a brand. It happens in seconds.

Does this respect my space? Or is this asking me to carry someone else’s promotional agenda?

Good design earns the answer: “This belongs here.”

Bad design gets tossed.

We’ve all experienced both. The conference tote bag that screams “free” and “disposable.” The cheap branded pen that feels like an obligation. These aren’t gifts. They’re small acts of disrespect dressed up as generosity.

Then there’s the opposite. The item that feels intentional. The weight is right. The finish is perfect. The branding is subtle enough to not announce itself.

You don’t feel advertised to. You feel seen.

Most brands optimize for the wrong thing. They measure how many items they distributed, not how many are still in use six months later. They confuse reach with resonance.

The Two-Year Test

Walk into the office of anyone who understands brand. Look around.

The merch they keep tells a story.

They’re not keeping things because they’re new. They’re keeping things because they’re right. A pen from a conference three years ago. A backpack from a thoughtful partner. Apparel that fits the way good apparel should.

These items have outlasted dozens of campaigns. They’ve survived countless trend cycles. They’re still there because they were never trend-dependent to begin with.

The strongest brands don’t ask, “What’s trending this week?”

They ask, “Will this still feel right in two years?”

Durability is a brand signal whether you intend it to be or not.

When you hand someone merch that falls apart after six weeks, you’re making a statement about your standards. When every item looks like it was ordered from the first page of a generic catalog, you’re communicating something about your creativity.

Conversely, when your branded merch lasts, ages well, continues to feel appropriate years after it was given, you’re saying that we think long-term. We value quality. We’re not chasing the moment.

In a market saturated with short-term thinking, long-term execution is a differentiator.

Quality Carries Memory

Neuroscience tells us the brain doesn’t store abstract impressions well. It stores sensory experiences.

Weight. Texture. Temperature. The tactile feedback of a well-manufactured object.

This is why you can’t recall the fifteenth ad you scrolled past this morning. But you can immediately remember the feel of the best pen you’ve ever used.

Physical experience creates memory anchors that digital experiences cannot replicate.

The feel of a premium pen. The feel of a well-designed hat. The moment you put on a hoodie and the weight feels exactly right.

These moments register. They create associations.

When someone picks up your merch and it feels substantial and crafted, they’re experiencing your standards. Your attention to detail. The respect you have for their time and space.

If you’re spending six figures on a brand campaign but treating physical touchpoints as an afterthought, you’re leaving the most powerful tool for memory formation on the table.

Finish matters. Weight matters. Fit and feel matter.

These details stay with people longer than taglines ever will.

The Crafted Takeaway

Stop measuring what you distributed. Start measuring what stuck around.

A single object that earns months of daily use delivers more cumulative brand exposure than ten thousand impressions that disappear by lunch.

The question isn’t whether branded merch “still matters” in a digital age.

The question is whether you’re building work that lasts or work that evaporates.

What’s on your desk right now that you’ve kept for more than a year? I’m curious what earned that real estate.

Last year, we’d just delivered a client’s new employee welcome kits. Premium stuff (custom notebooks, a beautifully embroidered hoodie, a few thoughtfully curated items that told their company’s story). Nothing generic. Nothing that screamed “we ordered 500 of these from a catalog.”

A few weeks later, she called.

“Brett, I have to tell you something.”

I braced myself. In this business, unexpected calls usually mean something went wrong. A shipment delayed. A logo printed crooked. The wrong shade of blue.

But she was laughing.

“My kids stole the stickers.”

She explained: Her six-year-old had raided the welcome kit she’d brought home to review. The stickers with their playful mascot were now plastered across her daughter’s notebook, her son’s water bottle, and apparently the family dog’s crate.

“I can’t even be mad,” she said. “They think my company is cool now.”

I’ve thought about that call a lot since then.

The Spreadsheet Problem

We’ve been trained to justify every branded merch purchase with metrics.

Impressions. Cost-per-touch. Redemption rates. Conversion attribution.

I’m not anti-data. Numbers matter. If you’re spending $50,000 on a client gifting program, you should absolutely track whether it’s moving the needle on retention or referrals.

But some of the most valuable outcomes from thoughtful merch don’t fit neatly into a dashboard.

How do you quantify when a potential client spots your custom jacket on a Zoom call and asks, “Hey, that’s cool. Where’d you get it?”

That’s not an impression. That’s a conversation. A warm introduction to your brand that no ad could buy.

Or when an employee wears their company hoodie to the grocery store. Not because they have to. Because they actually want to. Because they’re proud.

That’s not a metric. That’s culture made visible.

The Sticker Test

I’ve started calling it “The Sticker Test.”

If a six-year-old would steal it, you’ve made something worth making.

It sounds ridiculous. But remember that kids don’t care about your brand guidelines. They don’t know your mission statement. They have zero interest in your Q3 objectives.

They just know if something is cool.

The problem is that most branded merchandise fails The Sticker Test spectacularly. It’s forgettable. Generic. The kind of stuff that goes straight into a drawer or, worse, the trash.

But when you create something with genuine craft and intention? Something that tells a story? Something that feels special?

People notice. They keep it. They use it. They talk about it.

And sometimes, their kids steal it.

The Zoom Call Moment

Imagine this…You’re on a video call with a prospect. Standard discovery meeting. They’re half-paying attention, scrolling through emails while you talk.

Then they notice the custom leather notebook on your desk. Or the embroidered cap hanging on your chair. Or the laser engraved tumbler you’re drinking from.

“Wait. What’s that?”

Suddenly, you’re not just another vendor pitch. You’re interesting. You have taste. You care about details.

That tiny interruption in their distraction is worth more than a thousand LinkedIn impressions.

But try putting it in a quarterly report.

The Pride Factor

After many years in this business, I’ve learner that the best branded merchandise doesn’t just represent your company. It makes people proud to be associated with it.

There’s a massive difference between:

• “Here’s a free t-shirt” (obligation)

• “I actually love this shirt” (pride)

The first is a transaction. The second is an emotional connection.

And emotional connections compound.

An employee who’s proud of their company hoodie becomes an ambassador. They wear it to the coffee shop. They wear it to pick up their kids. They wear it on vacation.

Every time, they’re telling a story about your brand without saying a word.

What Actually Counts

Someone told me that Einstein supposedly said, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Whether he actually said it…I have no clue. But it’s great point.)

In branded merchandise, we’ve gotten obsessed with counting the wrong things.

We count units shipped. We count cost-per-item. We count how many people grabbed something from the trade show booth.

But we don’t count:

• The conversation sparked by quality merch

• The pride an employee feels wearing something they actually chose to wear

• The moment a prospect notices your attention to detail

• The kid who thinks their parent’s company is cool

These moments don’t show up in spreadsheets. But they’re gold for your brand.

The Takeaway

The most valuable ROI from branded merch is often invisible to analytics.

A genuine conversation. A surge of pride. A six-year-old’s seal of approval.

Metrics can’t capture what these moments actually build. The real emotional connection to your brand.

The question isn’t just “What’s the cost-per-impression?”

It’s “What story are we telling?”

Your turn: Do you have any anecdotal “wins” from merch that you’d count as a success, even if you can’t measure it? I’d love to hear your story. Hit reply or drop a comment. The best ones might make it into a future post.

Most companies treat merch vendors like ATMs. Send a request. Get a quote. Place an order. Done.

This is why your merch ends up in donation bins or, worse, landfills.

Does this sound familiar? You need 300 hoodies for an event. You call a merch distributor. They email you a 400-page e-catalog. You scroll through pages of identical-looking options. Pick something that seems “fine.”

They process the order. Ship it. Invoice you. Move on to the next account.

Zero thought. Zero creative. Zero connection to your actual brand story.

Your employees get generic hoodies with your logo slapped on the chest. They wear them once at the event. Then they end up in a drawer. Or a donation bin. Or a landfill.

Every piece of merch is a physical expression of your brand promise. When you hand someone a thoughtless, generic item, you’re telling them your brand is thoughtless and generic. You’re actively damaging your brand.

The Broken Model

The entire branded merch industry is built on a transactional model that prioritizes speed and cost over everythin. Distributors act as middlemen between you and factories with volume being their incentive. Never thinking about your brand story.

We’re no longer in the world of merch being just “stuff with logos.” Free pens at trade shows. Cheap tote bags at conferences. Your employees, prospects and clients expect more.

The old playbook doesn’t work anymore.

Our Approach

Earlier this year, a client came to us needing hoodies for their Series B announcement. They’d just closed $15 million. They were scaling fast. Hiring aggressively.

The easy thing to do was to order 500 hoodies from the usual supplier. Embroidery them in two-weeks. Charge the client $29 per unit.

Instead, we designed a fully custom hoodie. We partnered with a factory that had opinions about fabric weight, colors, and decoration. They cared about everything.

On our first call with them, it lasted three hours, we didn’t talk about SKUs or unit pricing. We talked about the client’s brand story. Why the founders started the company. What they wanted their culture to feel like. What message they wanted to send to new and current employees.

After hearing questions from the factory we’d never heard before, we designed from scratch. Specific shade of navy that matched their brand deck exactly. Pocket placement based on how their team actually carries phones. We even printed the company’s mission statement inside the hang tag. Made it something people would want to keep.

Took six weeks. Cost $47 per unit.

The objection from the client’s finance team came quickly. They didn’t understand why they needed to spend double when cheaper options exist. Finance didn’t understand that they were not just buying hoodies. They were making a statement about what the company values.

Every new employee will get one of these on day one. It’s the first physical thing they’ll receive. It will shape how they think about the culture. About whether they cut corners or obsess over details.

Same with investors. Partners. Prospects.

When someone puts on a generic hoodie, they think “free stuff.” When they put on something genuinely well-made, they think “this company cares.”

That’s not marketing fluff. That’s measurable brand equity.

The Result

Those hoodies became their most requested item ever.

New employees asked about them before their first day. Candidates mentioned them in interviews as one of the reasons they wanted to join. The CEO continues to wear his on investor calls.

The company ordered two more runs with different colorways because everyone involved cared about craft. Not just hitting order minimums.

Vendor vs Partner

When you work with a vendor, you’re buying a commodity. You optimize for price and speed. The vendor optimizes for volume and efficiency.

There’s no incentive to optimize for impact.

When you work with a creative partner, the entire conversation changes. You’re collaborating on something that matters. They bring expertise and ideas. They challenge your assumptions. They care about the outcome.

The best merch partners should be asking you to share brand guidelines before discussing products. They want to understand the story before suggesting solutions. They push back when something doesn’t align with the brand.

That’s the relationship you want.

Not someone who says “yes” to everything and ships whatever’s easiest. Someone who has the confidence to say “this won’t work” and the creativity to propose something better.

The Lesson

Everything in your business has a vendor version and a partner version.

You can hire a vendor to build your website. Or partner with a designer who cares about the user experience.

You can work with a vendor accountant who files your taxes. Or partner with a CFO who helps you think strategically about capital allocation.

Same with merch.

The vendor approach is faster. Cheaper. Easier.

The partner approach takes longer. Costs more. Requires actual relationship building.

Most companies default to the vendor approach because it feels easier and safer. It’s predictable. It’s what everyone else does and then they wonder why their merch doesn’t land. Why employees don’t wear it and clients don’t keep it.

It’s because nobody cares about commodities. People care about things that were made with intention. That tell a story. That reflect real thought and craft.

You have to build it with someone who gives a shit not buying it from a catalog.

Most companies waste their entire merch budget not because they pick bad items. Because they add merch like it’s an afterthought. Something to throw in because “everyone does it.”

I saw this firsthand with a SaaS company last year. They spent a ton on a product launch campaign. Premium hoodies. Wireless chargers.

Six months later, their VP of Marketing showed me a photo of boxes of unused merch in their storage closet. Easily 40% of what they’d ordered. Sitting there collecting dust.

“We gave people stuff they didn’t need,” she said. “At a moment when they didn’t need it.”

Most merch doesn’t fail because it’s cheap or ugly. It fails because it has nothing to do with what’s actually happening.

Challenge

According to promotional products industry data, the average branded item gets used 6 times before it’s discarded or forgotten. SIX TIMES. For something you paid $15 - $50 for.

What this stat tells me is that bad merch doesn’t just waste money. It actively damages your brand.

You hand someone a generic water bottle with your logo. They already own four water bottles. Now yours is cluttering their cabinet. Every time they see it, they’re reminded that you gave them something useless.

That’s brand pollution not brand building.

The approach we’ve been told to follow is broken. Companies treat merch as an addition to the experience. Something separate from what they actually do.

Response

A law firm was rolling out a new client onboarding process. The managing partner wanted to “elevate the experience.” His first instinct was luxury gifts. Leather portfolios. Mont Blanc pens. The traditional law firm playbook.

Before we even started to talk about merch, I had him walk me through the actual client experience instead.

New clients were anxious. They didn’t understand the legal process. They weren’t sure what to expect. The first meeting was overwhelming and consisted of information overload about timelines, documentation, next steps.

We built an onboarding kit around a clear roadmap document showing exactly what happens when. A glossary of legal terms they’d encounter. A simple folder system for organizing their paperwork. Contact cards for every person they’d work with.

Nothing expensive. Nothing fancy. Just useful.

Their client satisfaction scores jumped but more importantly, clients stopped calling with the same confused questions. The kit answered them.

The managing partner called it the best $41 per client they’d ever spent.

This was the project that made me realize we’d been thinking about merch completely backwards. The question isn’t “what should we give them?” It’s “what moment are we in, and what would actually help?”

• A creative agency hosting a brand strategy workshop. They needed something for attendees to capture thinking. We designed notebooks with prompts that matched each workshop section. People opened them in the first five minutes and filled them throughout the day.

• A startup launching a complex new software feature. Users were struggling with adoption. We created a physical quick-reference chart printed on a microfiber cloth. Not a postcard. Something useful. With the most common workflows. Feature adoption jumped in the first month.

• An accelerator welcoming a new cohort of founders. Instead of random startup merch, we built welcome kits around their actual first week. Day one items they’d use in orientation. Day three tools for their first mentor meeting. The merch became the program roadmap.

Most companies should give away less merch, not more.

Spend twice as much per item on things that actually serve a purpose. You’ll get better results. The $8 tote bag nobody needs is more expensive than the $40 speaker they use every day. Because the tote bag costs you brand equity. The speaker builds it.

Integration over Addition

Your merch should be part of the experience, solving a problem that exists in that moment.

• Patagonia figured this out decades ago. Their merch isn’t random branded gear. It’s functional tools for the activities their customers actually do. Their repair kit isn’t a giveaway. It’s a product that reinforces their sustainability mission while serving a real need.

• Mailchimp sends new customers a welcome kit. But it’s not swag. It’s a physical playbook that helps them use the software better. The “merch” is customer success in a box.

• The Savannah Bananas don’t give away generic baseball merchandise. They design items that spark conversations. Their gear is their marketing and is interesting enough that people actually wear it and talk about it (like me).

The standard needs to be whether or not the item makes the experience better. Does it help someone do something? Does it reinforce your story?

If the answer is no, don’t make it.

Before you do anything with merch, map the customer journey. Find the friction points and the moments of confusion when people need help. Design for those moments. Not for what looks good in a catalog.

• Hosting a workshop? Don’t send gifts afterward. Give people tools they use during the event. Make the merch part of the learning.

• Onboarding clients? Don’t welcome them with a generic box. Give them exactly what they need for their first 30 days. Make your merch reduce their anxiety.

• Launching a product? Don’t create awareness items. Create adoption tools. Make your merch help people use what you built.

It seems simple but it’s harder than it seems to stop thinking like a marketer trying to get your logo out there and start thinking like a service designer trying to improve someone’s experience.

A client of that law firm mentioned the kit in a Google review six months after we did their onboarding kits. “They thought of everything,” the review said. “Even gave us a roadmap so we knew exactly what to expect.”

That’s what happens when merch stops being merch and becomes part of how you deliver value.

People remember it. They use it. They talk about it.

Because it actually helped them.

Kate Trumbull, Domino’s CMO, had a problem most CMOs dream about.

Her brand was printing money. Thirteen straight years of growth. Nearly $20 billion in sales. Digital orders up 85%. They’d beaten Pizza Hut so badly it wasn’t even close anymore.

So she did what any rational executive would do.

She blew it all up.

Not because customers were leaving. Not because the brand was tired. But because she saw something nobody else did: Domino’s had become the FedEx of food.

People loved the tracker. The app was brilliant. The two-click reorder was magic.

But nobody craved the actual pizza.

Challenge

For a decade, Domino’s sold itself as a tech company. The tracker became more famous than the pepperoni. Their engineers got more press than their pizza makers.

Because tech gets old. Pizza doesn’t.

Meanwhile, Gen Z scrolls past ads like they’re spam calls. You get one second on TikTok before they swipe. Maybe two if you’re lucky. The old TV playbook died somewhere between Instagram Reels and DoorDash.

Domino’s had a choice to make. Keep riding the tech wave until someone builds a better app, or remind people why they actually ordered pizza in the first place.

Most brands wait until sales tank before they refresh. By then, you’re not innovating from strength, you’re panicking from weakness. The market smells desperation and your best customers get confused. You end up like Cracker Barrel, announcing a rebrand that triggers such fierce backlash you lose $100 million in market cap and have to reverse course entirely.

Kate saw the cliff before driving off it. The question was whether changing the formula while winning would create more problems than it solved.

The Boxes

They launched their first rebrand in 13 years.

But they didn’t torch their heritage. They kept the red and blue but made them hotter. The new font got thicker and doughier. Everything screamed “fresh pizza” instead of “download our app.”

The boxes got the biggest facelift. Simpler. Brighter. Instagram-ready. Because Kate noticed that hundreds of people post their pizza boxes every single day. Free ads. But their old boxes looked like cardboard from 1997.

The premium play was smarter. Their stuffed crust boxes now come in black and metallic gold. Feels expensive. Looks indulgent. Same pizza, different signal.

Except there’s risk buried in that move. Black and gold signals luxury. But Domino’s core promise is cheap, fast, reliable pizza. If the fancy box makes people think stuffed crust costs too much, they’ll order less of it. Premiumization only works if your customer wants to trade up. Get it wrong and you alienate the base that built you.

The Jingle

Then there’s the jingle. They hired five-time Grammy nominee Shaboozey to sing “Dommmino’s.” Not cute. Calculated. You literally can’t say the name without saying “mmm.” They call it a “cravemark.”

It’s a sensory hack baked into their brand name.

But cultural moments die fast. Shaboozey is hot now. If “Dommmino’s” doesn’t become an earworm by January, they wasted their best hook on a novelty that ages like milk. You get maybe 90 days for a jingle to penetrate culture or it’s just background noise.

Timing

Kate said: “Most companies rebrand when they’re struggling. We’re doing it after years of growth because we want to be the best version of ourselves.”

Translation: We saw the cliff before we drove off it.

But not everyone’s convinced. The skeptics point out that they had thirteen years of growth with the old branding. Their digital system was best-in-class. Customers weren’t complaining about box colors or fonts. Now they’ve added complexity with multiple box designs, new uniforms, a jingle that might not stick. For what? A few extra Instagram posts?

Real Risk

The real risk is confusing their loyalists. The ones ordering three times a month because Domino’s is fast and familiar. Those people don’t care about “hotter blues” or celebrity jingles. They want their pizza in 30 minutes. Period.

And there’s a bigger operational land mine most people aren’t talking about: 99% of Domino’s stores are franchises. Those owners now have to buy new boxes, signage, uniforms, gear. That’s real money with unclear payback. If franchisees drag their feet, the rollout looks patchy and cheap. You’ll have stores with new branding next to stores with old branding. That inconsistency kills a refresh faster than anything.

Plus the economics are shaky. Consumer spending is soft right now. Restaurants are hurting. But sure, roll out expensive new packaging across 21,500 stores. If macro conditions tank and sales soften, this refresh looks like hubris instead of vision.

The biggest miss is that they buried their actual story. Their Parmesan Stuffed Crust was “one of the biggest new menu items in their history.” That product drove real growth. Real revenue. Real margin expansion. But now everyone’s talking about fonts instead of food. They might’ve just distracted from what was actually working.

They chose momentum over caution. And that only works if growth continues.

Result

Early signs look good. YouTube comments are positive. Social buzz is up. Every article mentioned it but nobody’s comparing them to Cracker Barrel’s disaster, which isn’t exactly confidence. That’s relief, not winning.

But the real win isn’t the fonts or colors.

It’s the honesty.

Kate admitted they’d become a tech company that sells pizza. That positioning was a time bomb. Tech ages in months. Pizza is forever. So they pivoted back to craveability before the market forced them to.

The lesson? Refresh from strength, not weakness. Wait until you’re struggling and you’re already behind. Do it while you’re winning and you stay ahead.

But staying ahead means protecting what made people love you in the first place. Domino’s kept their red and blue. They kept the domino logo. They just made it hotter. If you’re changing everything, you’re not refreshing...you’re replacing. And replacement is how you lose loyalists.

Whether this works comes down to execution. Can they roll it out evenly across 21,500 stores? Will franchisees adopt it fast enough to maintain consistency? Does the jingle stick or fade? Do the pretty boxes actually drive more orders, or just make existing customers feel slightly better about the same purchase?

We’ll know in six months.

The guy on the phone sounded friendly enough.

“We need some cheap swag for a trade show next month. What’s your best price on tote bags?”

I could hear my father-in-law’s voice in my head. That’s a $15,000 order. Don’t be a moron.

“I appreciate the call,” I said. “But I don’t think we’re the right fit. Let me connect you with someone who can help.”

Eight minutes. Done.

My team lost their minds.

“You just walked away from five figures because he said the word ‘cheap’?”

Yes. Exactly.

The Split Is Happening Right Now

Walk into a record store. They’re packed on Saturdays.

Vinyl sales up 17% last year. CDs down 8%.

Physical isn’t dying. It’s getting picky.

The same thing is happening in B2B. But most people are missing it.

There are two types of companies buying branded merchandise right now:

• Type A asks: “What’s the cheapest way to get our logo out there?”

• Type B asks: “What physical experience will make people remember us?”

Same budget. Completely different outcomes.

A law firm spent $8,000 on a thousand tote bags last year. Know how many meaningful conversations those bags started? Zero. They’re in closets.

A design studio spent the same $8,000 on 200 custom welcome kits for clients. They got 47 thank-you emails and three referrals in two months.

The gap between these two approaches isn’t creativity. It’s philosophy.

And it shows up immediately in how people talk.

The Language Test

After that phone call, I got curious.

I notice a pattern in our sales calls instantly.

Prospects who say “promotional items” or “bulk pricing” in the first call? Our close rate was super low.

Prospects who say “brand story” or “strategic touchpoint”? Close rate jumped significantly.

Your vocabulary isn’t just words. It’s a values test.

If someone opens a conversation talking about “cheap giveaways,” they’ll never value what we do. They’re shopping for commodities. We’re not selling commodities.

If someone opens talking about story and impact, they already get it. Now we’re just solving the execution problem.

Mark Roberge says the best salespeople disqualify bad fits fast. He’s right. We now qualify every prospect in five minutes based on language alone.

Not snobby. Strategic.

What Changed When We Started Saying No

Three things happened after we implemented the language filter:

1. Our close rate went up. Obviously. We stopped wasting time on prospects who’d grind us on price and never refer us.

2. Our clients got better results. When you’re working with people who already value strategic thinking, the projects get better. A 30-person agency in Austin used to send clients logo tote bags. We helped them create custom field notebooks that told their story. Three prospects brought up the notebooks in pitch meetings. Two became clients.

3. Our team got happier. Turns out, doing great work for people who appreciate it beats doing mediocre work for people who resent the price.

We’re not trying to convince skeptics anymore. We’re helping believers win.

The Real Revolution

Everyone says everything is going digital.

But the more digital our world gets, the more a physical moment can cut through.

A handwritten note. A beautifully designed welcome kit. A product launch gift that tells your story.

These aren’t “nice to haves.” They’re competitive advantages.

We followed some venture-backed startups after their Series A. The ones who invested in narrative-driven onboarding kits saw better retention.

Physical builds culture faster than Slack ever will.

The creative agencies treating merchandise like strategic campaigns saw higher client retention than the ones ordering from catalogs.

Physical reinforces positioning better than another email blast.

The brands that will win in the next five years understand this. They’re not asking “what’s the cheapest option?” They’re asking “what’s the most meaningful experience we can create?”

Different question. Different results.

The Quick Test

Pull up your last three merchandise orders.

Read the email chain. Count how many times you see these words:

• Cheap

• Bulk

• Promotional

• Giveaway

Now count these:

• Story

• Experience

• Strategic

• Impact

The ratio tells you everything.

Not about your vendor. About your mindset.

If you’re talking about bulk pricing, you’re thinking transactionally. Your partners will treat you that way. Your results will show it.

If you’re talking about strategic experiences, you’re thinking about brand equity. Your partners will rise to meet you. The ROI will prove it.

The Bottom Line

The market is splitting into two camps.

1. Companies that view branded merchandise as an expense to minimize.

2. Companies that view it as an investment in relationships.

You can’t straddle both. The mindset drives the vocabulary. The vocabulary reveals the mindset. The results follow predictably.

I killed that $15,000 deal because I knew where it would lead. Forty hours of grinding on revisions. Zero referrals. A commodity relationship.

Our close rate is higher now. Our average deal size up. Our team actually enjoys the work.

All because we learned to listen for one thing: How do they talk about this?

The words matter. They always have.

I Got 23 Gifts Last Year. I Remember One.

Last year I got 23 corporate gifts from vendors.

Amazon cards. Starbucks cards. A few wine bottles.

I used them all within a week. Can't remember who sent a single one.

But three years ago, a consultant sent me a custom powerbank. I still use it. His name comes to mind every time I plug in my phone.

That's the difference between a transaction and a relationship.

Your Safe Choice Isn't Safe

Most companies treat client gifts like a checkbox. Budget allocated. Box ticked. Move on.

They default to gift cards because they're easy. Safe. Generic.

But the problem is that your "safe" choice is the same choice 47 other vendors made. You just paid $50 to remind your client you see them as a line item.

A law firm partner told me she gets so many gift baskets during the holidays that she started donating them unopened. "If I can't tell who it's from without the card, it didn't work," she said.

Your gift was supposed to build goodwill. Instead, it was regifted.

I Wasted $500 Learning This

I learned this the expensive way.

We put together a "premium" gift basket for a high-value client. Branded notebooks. Nice pens. Tech accessories.

They smiled politely during the handoff. Then ghosted us for three months.

Turns out, they didn't need more stuff. They needed something that showed we understood their world.

So we changed the game. Instead of asking "What can we afford?" we started asking "What would make them feel seen?"

For our next attempt, we researched. We listened. We found out this client's team was remote-first and struggling with communication.

We sent custom team communication kits. Each one included a physical "communication style" card the person filled out, a journal for daily standups, and a note explaining how we use the same system internally.

They sent us a photo of the entire team holding them on a Zoom call. We landed a six-figure program two weeks later.

Here's the framework that works:

The MERIT Rule (I just made this up, but it makes sense):

• Memorable: Will they keep it on their desk?

• Emotional: Does it trigger a genuine reaction?

• Relevant: Does it solve a real problem they have?

• Individual: Did you research them specifically?

• Talkable: Will they tell someone else about it?

Most corporate gifts fail all five.

A gift card scores zero. It's instantly forgotten, emotionally flat, solves nothing unique, requires zero research, and nobody tells stories about getting an Amazon credit.

The consultant's powerbank? Five for five.

47% vs 3%

I’ve been told that the data backs this up. Someone tracked gift performance across 127 clients over 18 months (not sure who tracked but stay with me).

Generic gifts (cards, wine, baskets): 3% led to follow-up meetings.

Researched, story-driven gifts: 47% led to follow-up meetings.

The average spend? Nearly identical. $65 vs $73.

The difference wasn't budget. It was intentionality.

Your merch should tell a story about who you are and who they are to you. It should make them feel seen, not processed.

Stop asking "What's our gift budget?"

Start asking "What do they actually need that nobody else is giving them?"

Panera. Tuesday morning.

I’m wearing my Savannah Bananas hat and gets stopped. Third time since walking in. This never happens when I wear my Yankees hat.

Random Stranger: “Dude, I love the Bananas! Have you been to a game?”

Me: “Yeh…four times.”

Random stranger: “No Way!”

Nobody stops you to talk about your corporate polo. But a Bananas hat? Different story.

Your merch is collecting dust, not creating momentum

You spend six months planning an event.

The swag (yes…I used the word swag) arrives day-of. People grab it. Some wear it. Most don’t. It sits in a drawer next to the other 47 branded pens nobody asked for.

Then you do it again next year.

What if your merch could create momentum instead of marking the end of it?

Most marketing leaders don’t ask that question. The Savannah Bananas did. And their answer completely changes how you should think about branded items.

The Bananas figured out what happens after the game ends

The Bananas built a flywheel. Owner Jesse Cole describes it like this:

Live events create content. Content drives traffic. Traffic builds demand. Demand fills more events.

Simple. Clean. Repeatable.

When they studying the Bananas success, most people miss that merch is the thing that keeps the wheel spinning when the game is over.

The numbers:

• Sold out every game since 2016 (tickets are impossible to get. I had to join the Fan Club to have a shot)
• Built 5 million fans
• 55% email open rate (national average is 20%)
• Fans wearing their gear get stopped by strangers asking about the team

That last one matters most.

At their games in Savannah, they offer all-inclusive pricing. Your ticket includes food and drinks. Sounds expensive, right?

Wrong.

When you remove the friction of buying food, fans spend more on merch. Parents aren’t worried about feeding their kids. So they buy the hat. The jersey. The shirt their kid will actually wear.

After the game, 40 players stick around signing stuff. That creates a moment. A photo. A post. More content feeding the flywheel.

But the real move happens the next day.

That fan (ME!) wears the hat to Panera. Gets stopped. “I love your hat.” Conversation starts. “Have you been to a game?” Story gets told. “I need to see this.” New fan created.

The merch extended the marketing into a place the Bananas could never reach.

That’s a flywheel. And most companies are still thinking about merch as a giveaway.

Most companies think merch is a line item. It’s actually momentum.

The mistake: thinking merch is about the moment you hand it out.

The reality: merch is about the six months after.

The Bananas don’t create cheap giveaways. They create lifestyle items people choose to wear. Because when someone chooses to represent your brand, they’re not just a customer.

They’re a channel.

Every coffee shop compliment. Every “Where’d you get that?” question. That’s your marketing budget working while you sleep.

But only if the merch is good enough to wear.

Only if it tells a story people want to repeat.

Only if it makes someone else stop and say, “I need to know more about that.”

Most companies are thinking about merch as a line item. Cost per unit. Boxes shipped. Campaign complete.

The smart companies are thinking about it as momentum.

I walked into a $8M creative agency's office last month.

Their conference room table looked like a promotional product graveyard. Dozens of samples scattered everywhere. Branded pens that leaked ink. Stress balls shaped like their logo that looked more like tumors. Tote bags with their tagline in Comic Sans font (I wish I was kidding).

The CMO, Sarah, gestured at the mess. "We're spending $75K annually on promotional items across three offices. The CFO is asking how we measure ROI. Honestly? I have no clue if any of this works."

I looked at their tracking spreadsheet. Three columns:

• Cost per unit: $3.47 average
• Total impressions: 847,000 estimated
• Distribution timeline: 4-6 weeks

"These metrics are making you stupid," I told her.

She laughed nervously. "What do you mean?"

The metrics problem nobody talks about

Here's what those "standard" metrics actually optimize for:

Cost per unit = race to the bottom When your primary metric is keeping unit costs low, you buy garbage. Always. That $0.50 pen? It'll break in three weeks and make your brand look cheap. That $2.00 tote bag? The stitching will fail before they get home from your event.

I've seen this pattern dozens of times. Marketing directors get praised for "negotiating great unit costs" while their brand equity slowly dies.

Total impressions = meaningless vanity metric "We reached 847,000 people!" But how? By cramming 50,000 stress balls into a warehouse that nobody requested? By mass-mailing USB drives to email lists that haven't been updated since 2018?

Impressions without engagement are just expensive littering.

Distribution speed = fast and forgettable Rush orders lead to poor decisions. When your timeline is "we need 5,000 of something tomorrow for the trade show," you're shopping from whatever's available in stock. No customization. No brand alignment. No story.

Just fast and forgettable.

What smart brands measure instead

I showed Sarah a different spreadsheet. Same client budget, completely different approach.

Instead of cost per unit → Cost per meaningful interaction

Example: Their old approach was $3 stress balls to 5,000 conference attendees. Total cost: $15,000. Meaningful interactions: Maybe 50 people who actually kept them.

Cost per meaningful interaction: $300 each.

New approach: $25 premium notebooks to 300 carefully selected prospects and clients. Total cost: $7,500. Meaningful interactions: 240 people still using them six months later.

Cost per meaningful interaction: $31 each.

The difference is dramatic when you measure what matters.

Instead of total reach → Usage frequency and retention

I had Sarah's team conduct a "desk audit" across their three offices. They photographed every branded item on employee desks, in bags, at home offices.

Results were brutal:

• Zero stress balls in active use
• 12% of branded pens still functioning after 6 months
• 3% of tote bags being used regularly
• 67% of premium water bottles still in daily rotation
• 89% of high-quality notebooks completely filled and replaced

The pattern was obvious. Quality determined usage. Usage determined brand impact.

Instead of distribution speed → Strategic timing alignment

Their biggest win came from timing alignment, not speed.

Old approach: Bulk order trade show giveaways the week before events. Hand out 2,000 random items to anyone walking by the booth.

New approach: Research attendee list in advance. Identify 50 highest-value prospects. Send personalized welcome packages to their offices two weeks before the event. Include premium items that reference the recipient's recent company news or achievements.

Result: 34 meaningful conversations at the trade show. 12 follow-up meetings scheduled. 3 deals closed within 90 days.

Compare that to their previous trade show results: 2,000 business cards collected, 15 follow-up calls, zero deals.

Brand association lift measurement This was Sarah's favorite discovery. They started asking prospects and clients: "What three words describe our agency's personality?"

Before the merchandise strategy shift, common responses were: "Creative, professional, expensive."

After six months of strategic, high-quality merchandise: "Creative, thoughtful, premium."

That word change from "expensive" to "premium" represented a fundamental shift in market perception.

The 90-day transformation

Here's exactly what happened when Sarah implemented this new measurement framework:

Month 1: The audit and purge

• Cataloged 47 different promotional items in their inventory
• Conducted usage audits across all three offices
• Cut product line to 8 carefully selected items
• Established baseline measurements for retention and usage

Month 2: Quality investment

• Doubled per-unit budget from $3.50 to $7.00 average
• Sourced premium notebooks with custom interior layouts
• Designed limited-edition apparel line for employees and VIP clients

Month 3: Results measurement

• Client retention improved 18% (from 73% to 91%)
• Employee satisfaction with company merchandise jumped from 2.3/5 to 4.7/5
• Organic social mentions increased 340%
• Three prospects specifically mentioned "attention to detail" when signing contracts

The psychology behind the metrics

Why do traditional metrics persist when they clearly don't work?

Simple: They're easy to measure and make you feel productive.

"We distributed 10,000 items!" sounds impressive in a board meeting. It's quantifiable. It suggests activity and reach.

"We facilitated 47 meaningful brand interactions" sounds smaller, even though it's infinitely more valuable.

The problem is psychological. Marketers have been trained to equate quantity with effectiveness. More leads, more impressions, more distribution.

But in a world oversaturated with branded junk, quality is the only sustainable differentiator.

The implementation reality check

Let me be honest about something: This approach isn't easier.

Traditional metrics are simple because they measure inputs, not outcomes. You can track cost per unit without ever talking to a customer. You can estimate impressions without measuring engagement.

Quality metrics require actual conversations with real people. They demand patience. They cost more upfront.

The brands willing to invest in better measurement always win long-term.

The competitive advantage hiding in plain sight

While your competitors optimize for cheap and fast, you can own thoughtful and memorable.

While they measure impressions, you measure impact.

The opportunity is massive because so few companies are thinking strategically about branded merchandise. They're stuck in the old paradigm of volume and cost control.

Making this transition requires admitting that most of what you've been doing hasn't worked.

That conference room table covered in mediocre samples? That's evidence of decisions optimized for the wrong metrics.

The good news? Every piece of junk in your closet represents a learning opportunity. Each failed item teaches you something valuable about what doesn't create lasting brand connections.

What's sitting on your desk right now?

Look at your desk right now. How many branded items do you see? How many are from companies you actively do business with? How many make you think positively about those brands?

If you're like most people, the answer is: very few.

That's your opportunity. In a world drowning in forgettable promotional items, the companies that invest in memorable, useful, beautiful branded experiences will stand out dramatically.

Your competitors are still measuring cost per unit while you're measuring cost per meaningful relationship.

That's not just better marketing. That's competitive advantage.

What's the most forgettable branded item cluttering your workspace right now? And more importantly—what does that teach you about the promotional items you're creating for others?