Let’s End UGLY MERCH.

๐Ÿ‘Š LET’S END UGLY MERCH ๐Ÿ‘Š

Close your eyes and imagine the ugliest piece of merch you’ve ever seen.ย For me, it’s a reusable soft lunch box with a big-๐Ÿ‘ pharma logo in bright white letters.

Now imagine that there are — literally — THOUSANDS of that item being “gifted” to people at a company or at a trade show.

Picture the guilt your recipients feel when they reluctantly put that item in the trash (or try to donate it only to discover that Goodwill doesn’t want it either).

๐ˆ๐ญ’๐ฌ ๐ฐ๐š๐ฌ๐ญ๐ž๐ ๐ญ๐ข๐ฆ๐ž, ๐ฆ๐จ๐ง๐ž๐ฒ, ๐š๐ง๐ ๐›๐š๐ ๐ฏ๐ข๐›๐ž๐ฌ.

You know the expression if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?ย Let’s apply it to merch: if you don’t have anything good to print, don’t print anything at all!ย Zero swag is better than junky, ugly swag.

If you’re feeling frustrated reading this because you’re feeling like there are no good options, let me disabuse you of that idea: ๐ญ๐ก๐ž๐ซ๐ž ๐š๐ซ๐ž ๐“๐Ž๐๐’ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐œ๐จ๐จ๐ฅ ๐ฌ๐ฐ๐š๐  ๐จ๐ฉ๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐ฌ ๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ž๐ซ๐ž ๐ญ๐ก๐š๐ญ ๐š๐ซ๐ž ๐š๐Ÿ๐Ÿ๐จ๐ซ๐๐š๐›๐ฅ๐ž, ๐ฃ๐จ๐ฒ๐Ÿ๐ฎ๐ฅ, ๐š๐ง๐ ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ž๐Ÿ๐ฎ๐ฅ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ฉ๐ž๐จ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐ž.

There are two big keys to arriving at non-ugly merch:
1) Keep your logo subtle; focus on the *values* of your company instead
2) Offer choice of merch whenever possible

I’d love to hear what you pictured when I said ugly merch! Please comment with what you’ve seen ๐Ÿ‘‡