The Loyal Chaos of Branded Merch in the Wild
There’s a man in Whangārei who wears his vintage DB Export Gold tank top to Mitre 10 every Saturday. Without fail. A crisp pair of jandals, faded blue shorts, and that yellowing logo, just visible beneath the collar of his flannel. I don’t know his name, but he’s a walking billboard for 1994, and I respect the hell out of him.
Branded merch is misunderstood. Not by punters, but marketers. It gets relegated to the merch cupboard, assumed to live or die in the hands of interns and giveaway promos. But out in the world it breeds a rare kind of loyalty. People don’t wear your brand across their chest unless they’ve decided to make it part of their personality. That’s a big call. Ask yourself—have you ever voluntarily worn anything with a Vodafone logo?
What’s fascinating is which brands make that leap. The ones that end up on hats, beach towels and disturbingly well-loved hoodies. Wattie’s. Oamaru Stone. Even Whittaker’s, whose chocolate tastes like comfort and whose tote bags live rent-free in the hearts of flat-whites-on-K-rd. Branded merch rarely makes sense from a numbers point of view, but it makes truckloads from a cultural one.
The lesson? Stop thinking of branded products as tactics. Start treating them like lore. Give your audience something they can use, yes, but more importantly, something they can see themselves in. We don’t wear logos because we’re unpaid ambassadors. We wear them because they remind us of who we are. And sometimes, who we miss being.
Branded merch is misunderstood. Not by punters, but marketers. It gets relegated to the merch cupboard, assumed to live or die in the hands of interns and giveaway promos. But out in the world it breeds a rare kind of loyalty. People don’t wear your brand across their chest unless they’ve decided to make it part of their personality. That’s a big call. Ask yourself—have you ever voluntarily worn anything with a Vodafone logo?
What’s fascinating is which brands make that leap. The ones that end up on hats, beach towels and disturbingly well-loved hoodies. Wattie’s. Oamaru Stone. Even Whittaker’s, whose chocolate tastes like comfort and whose tote bags live rent-free in the hearts of flat-whites-on-K-rd. Branded merch rarely makes sense from a numbers point of view, but it makes truckloads from a cultural one.
The lesson? Stop thinking of branded products as tactics. Start treating them like lore. Give your audience something they can use, yes, but more importantly, something they can see themselves in. We don’t wear logos because we’re unpaid ambassadors. We wear them because they remind us of who we are. And sometimes, who we miss being.