👊 LET’S END UGLY MERCH 👊

Close your eyes and imagine the ugliest piece of merch you’ve ever seen. For me, it’s a reusable soft lunch box with a big-🍑 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).

𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞, 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐯𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐬.

You know the expression if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all? Let’s apply it to merch: if you don’t have anything good to print, don’t print anything at all! 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: 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐬𝐰𝐚𝐠 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞, 𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐮𝐥, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞.

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 👇