A keychain that does more than just dangle, an art-inspired activation idea, and the only full-size logo application I’ll wear with my full chest.

Keychains with a job

I’ve made custom-branded keychains before and they were adorable – but they were purely decorative, which broke one of my own swag rules (functionality first, always). Swag that’s purely decorative requires people to already have some brand affinity, but functional swag builds the affinity in the first place. The good news is keychains have been having a moment with bag charms and Labubus, and the options now are wildly more useful – mini totes, AirPod cases, coin purses, boat floats. If your brand has any tie-in (a coin purse for a fintech, a floatie for anything water-adjacent), lean in.

A “palette” activation

This one’s more activation than swag, but it lives in the same family – branded objects designed to be photographed and shared. I actually gasped when I saw paint palettes of ice cream samples. There are so many creative iterations on this: sample platters, tasting flights, bento boxes. The “palette” format does the heavy lifting because it’s interactive, photogenic, and ties in a collection of brand values, colors, iconography, you name it. At a conference or event, this would beat a tote bag every time – you just have to apply some creativity to how your brand shows up in this format.

Emboss or bust

I’ve been jealous of Attentive’s embossed crewnecks since I saw them a few years ago, and I’ve seen this style cycled in and out of popularity for years. Embossing is, in my opinion, the only acceptable application method for a full-chest logo. It turns your logo into a tonal texture, and it photographs like high-end retail merch instead of conference swag. Embossing works best on heavyweight cotton or sweatshirts, which also immediately signals that it’s more premium than your average freebie.

Want to see more ideas worth stealing? Head over to pinterest.com/swagsnob to find monthly merch ideas, plus swag snob-worthy products by color, type, and more.

How to get leadership to care about swag

Just a wild guess here: your leadership team probably doesn’t care about swag. Whether your swag is objectively good or bad, the leaders who control the budget likely see it as a nice-to-have, an HR task, or a variable cost line item to cut back on.

I’m never surprised when I hear about swag getting handed off, under-funded, and rushed at the last minute. The cheapest, fastest, most generic option typically wins, which then reinforces leadership’s belief that swag isn’t worth caring about. It’s a self-fulfilling loop, and it’s how so many B2B companies end up with a closet full of “old brand” tees and water bottles.

Until leadership sees swag as a brand investment, your swag program will never get the budget, attention, or strategy it deserves. Well, maybe the strategy – I gotchu! But the rest is on you: your job is to change the conversation before the next budget ask.

Why leadership stops listening when you say “swag”

The word itself is part of the problem. Let’s not forget that “SWAG” is an acronym for stuff we all get. “Swag” (or god forbid, pronounced “schwag”) sounds like party favors, freebies, tchotchkes. It sounds like something a coordinator deals with, not something a CMO defends, let alone carves out a meaningful budget for.

But swag is one of the only tangible expressions of your brand that lives outside the building. Customers wear it. Employees post about it. Recruits notice it. Prospects keep it on their desk – or they don’t. My point being: it either compounds the brand or undermines it. There’s rarely a middle ground because if someone is indifferent to your swag, I would argue it’s doing nothing for your brand.

A few signs that your swag is undermining your brand:

• Employees wear the brand tee for a company photo and immediately take it off

• Trade show attendees decline swag: “No thanks, I have too many tote bags!”

• Your HQ office closet is stacked with “old brand” and leftovers nobody wants

I see this as a brand problem. One of the most accessible, tangible ways to express the brand is sitting right there – completely underutilized. The company is paying for the missed opportunity whether they realize it or not.

How to position swag as something leadership cares about

If you walk into the room talking about embroidery vs. screen print, you’ve already lost. Leadership doesn’t care about the details. They care about why it matters to the business. Here are four angles and tactics you should take instead:

First impressions. Swag is one of the first physical items a new hire interacts with, maybe other than their new laptop. What does your welcome kit say about who you are as a company? Is it thoughtful or thrown together? Job candidates notice what new hires are posting on social. This should be a key investment in your employer brand. Bring photos of your current welcome kit to the next conversation about retention or hiring and let leadership react to what’s actually being sent. Plant an open-ended question instead of pitching a new program: ”What do we want this new hire experience to say about us as a company, both in private and in public?”

Customer engagement. Good swag becomes earned media. Customers post it, prospects ask about it, and people send their colleagues to your booth to grab one. That’s legitimate marketing reach, and it only happens when the swag is worth talking about. So the next time a customer or competitor posts about swag on LinkedIn, screenshot it and send it to your CMO with something like, “we could be doing this.” Better yet, start a folder and send them five examples at once. Muahaha!

Brand consistency. Swag can be one of the most-photographed brand assets your company has. It shows up in conference recaps, employee selfies, and customer loyalty posts. Most companies are still managing swag as a purchase order instead of a brand expression. Pull a quick visual audit of your last 12 months of swag and put it next to your brand guidelines. There’s probably a gap, so use that to guide the convo.

The cost of getting it wrong. Bad swag isn’t free. (Read that again!) There’s the obvious waste: unused inventory, donation piles, dead stock from the last rebrand. And then there’s brand drag: every thoughtless, off-brand hoodie in the wild is a tiny vote against the brand you’re trying to build. Tie the cost of getting it wrong to something leadership already cares about. If the focus is retention, frame your next swag conversation around the new hire experience or anniversary swag. If it’s pipeline, frame it around booth traffic, leads, or engagement. Instead of making swag the topic, make it the proof point for a topic leadership is already losing sleep over.

Once your leaders see swag as something the market sees, photographs, talks about, and makes judgments based on – you can easily shift the conversation from “stuff” to strategy. But you have to change your internal dialog and approach, too: You’re no longer asking for swag budget. You’re making the case for an under-leveraged brand channel. You got this, swag snob!

Merch muse: Clay’s clay figurines

Sometimes a piece of swag is so on-brand it doesn’t even need to be explained. Clay, the GTM platform, sends new hires a custom clay figurine of themselves – made by Little Clay Land, a small studio that hand-sculpts portrait figurines from photos.

It works on so many levels.

First, it’s perfectly on brand. The company is named Clay. Their entire narrative is about building, shaping, customizing – and their visual identity is molded around clay. A handmade clay figurine is the brand expressed in a single object. You don’t need a logo on it (although they do that too). The medium is the point.

Second, Clay isn’t posting about these figurines on LinkedIn or their careers page. I could only find the images below from Clay employees posting about them – which is the best possible sign that the swag worked. When the recipients become the distribution channel, it’s time to give the marketing team a raise!

Third, custom-made figurines feel premium and rare, but at the volume of new hires most early-stage companies are dealing with, it’s likely a fraction of what most companies spend on welcome kit items that end up in a junk drawer. Plus, as Clay grows, they’re supporting a women-owned business in the process. Win-freaking-win.

Earlier I argued that the second you let leadership think of swag as tchotchkes, you’ve lost the budget conversation. I’d bet an entire Clay subscription that nobody on their marketing team pitched these figurines as “fun trinkets for new hires.” They pitched them as a way to create belonging and an investment in Clay’s culture and brand.

The whole thing is incredible. I’m have FOMO – what about you?! I strongly believe every company should strive for a small but ridiculously on-brand object that makes a new employee feel like the company gives a damn about their first day.

Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

This month’s ideas leave plentyyy of space for creative execution. All three are event-ready, bulk-friendly, one-size-fits-most, and have real “beloved brand” potential.

Iconic hats

Ok, what I mean is hats with icons – think tiny embroidered pieces of your UI or brand iconography (or team-favorite Slackmojis, inside jokes/symbols, etc). And if they’re externally recognizable on their own, you don’t need a logo. The icons become the brand representation, just quieter and a lot more wearable. One-size-fits-most makes bulk ordering super easy, and I think these would work equally well at trade shows and as employee swag. There’s tons of inspiration on Pinterest!

Co-created pieces

This is the kind of swag that’s only finished when the recipient can make it their own. It could be anything from a paper coffee cup with a crossword puzzle printed on the side, a t-shirt with a word search, or a tote bag printed with spaces to attach pins or patches over time. The National Parks “passport” drinkware is a popular version of this – they sell water bottles with designated spots for location stickers. It’s part collectible, part interactive, part co-creation – and there are so many directions you could take this to suit your brand.

Dry bags

We produced these at Cordial and they were a massive hit with the internal team. To this day, I still get comments about them from former colleagues. Dry bags are not an everyday bag, which is actually the appeal – they live in the car for the beach trip, on the boat, at the gym, in the vacation bag. And because people don’t accumulate twenty of them the way they accumulate totes, it will stay in rotation. With spring break and summer coming up, this is a good one to consider. If you’ve got a prospect or new customer who’s mentioned a beach vacation, a boat, or anything outdoorsy in a recent call – this is your move. Useful, unexpected, and genuinely memorable.

How founders create early evangelists with swag

If you’re an early-stage founder or a marketing team of one – this is for you.

In the beginning, the founder is the brand. Every conversation started, introduction made, relationship built… that’s all marketing. And swag, used strategically, can be a physical extension of those conversations, introductions, and relationships.

The problem is when swag gets treated as something to order before a conference, or something to throw in a welcome kit because that’s what companies do. Early-stage founder/CEOs and team-of-one marketers don’t have the time or resources to think carefully about who gets swag, when it shows up, or what it’s supposed to do.

If that sounds familiar, the good news is: the bar is low. You’re competing with the forgettable swag that every other early-stage company is sending. And you’re reading Swag Snob, so you’re already ahead!

Leveraging swag to build early evangelism comes down to 1) intent and 2) timing.

1. Intent: In the early conversations, introductions, and relationships, the person on the other end is deciding whether to believe in you. Not only in your product or services, but in your vision, your taste, and your ability to build something worth being a part of. A basic water bottle with a logo doesn’t communicate much more than “we exist.” In fact, if that’s all you have – I’d suggest you don’t send it. What you want it to say is “I was paying attention.”

2. Timing: Intentional swag (or gifts/direct mail), sent at the right moment, is one of the few physical “channels” you can use to reinforce that belief – before you have much else to show. The sending window is right after someone says, “I’m in” because it’s the moment with the most excitement and new trust.

Ok so who has the potential to become an evangelist for your brand? And what should you send them? I like to think about them in three categories: your advisors, your testers, and your buyers.

The advisor

Advisors open doors. They put your name in rooms you’re not in yet. What you send them needs to do something a gift card can’t do: make them feel like an insider.

Think less of a thank you gift and more, “welcome to the inner circle.” Consider limited-run or early-access items. Say for example you’re building a fintech startup – you could send a beautifully designed leather portfolio embossed with their initials and a handwritten note about how excited you are to have their support.

Gift and swag ideas for “the advisor” persona:

• A custom leather portfolio or notebook embossed with their initials

• A numbered, limited-run print from an artist whose work connects to your brand

• A curated book with a handwritten note about why you chose it for them

Timing recommendations: send it within the first week of formalizing the relationship, not a month later when the excitement has cooled.

The tester

Testers, or beta users, are your best future case studies if they feel like collaborators instead of guinea pigs. The swag you send them should reflect that relationship (it probably isn’t the moment for a leftover t-shirt from the new hire kit). Send them something that acknowledges the specific thing they’re doing for you.

Gift and swag ideas for “the tester” persona:

• A custom desk accessory designed around your product’s core workflow

• A “bug catcher” kit – a small, humorous kit leaning into the beta testing role

• A nice pair of headphones or earbuds for deep focus sessions

Timing recommendations: send it after they’ve committed to giving you feedback, but before they’ve had a chance to form an opinion. Before the first frustrating bug, while the honeymoon is honeymooning.

The buyer

This one can flip from thoughtful to pushy very quickly. Send swag to buyers when it will deepen a relationship that’s already established. If you’ve had at least two or three genuine conversations with someone who fits your ICP, who’s embedded in a community where their opinion carries weight, and who seems genuinely interested – that’s the moment. I’d be cautious of sending before then.

What you send should feel personal and like you’ve payed attention (because you have, right? RIGHT?!). If they mentioned in a call that they’re obsessed with good coffee, a beautifully packaged bag from a local roaster with a handwritten note goes further than a company hoodie. The thoughtfulness is what will build brand affinity.

If you want to include something branded, go for a high-quality item they’d actually use with minimal, tasteful branding. The goal is for them to use it in public and feel good about it, not feel like a walking ad.

Gift and swag ideas for “the buyer” persona:

• A book that relates to something specific they said in a call

• A plant if they mentioned a home office, cookies if they mentioned a sweet tooth

• A donation to a cause they’ve mentioned publicly or on LinkedIn

Timing recommendations: after a meaningful touchpoint – a great call, a referral they made on your behalf, a moment where the relationship leveled up – not as an opener.

Bonus content! Here’s an AI prompt you can use to surface ideas from your call recordings with your advisors, testers, and buyers:

Your early swag list should be short enough to name every person on it. You don’t need 500 units. You need 20, or even 10, of something genuinely thoughtful. If you’re looking for vendors who can handle low minimum order quantities (MOQs), send me a note – I’d be happy to make some recommendations or intros.

Merch muse: Granola’s spoons

If you don’t know Granola, it’s an AI meeting notes tool. I just learned that they send beautifully designed spoons as brand swag – which is unexpected yet on-brand – and would absolutely make me smile if it showed up at my door.

Rob Denton broke down the thinking behind it, and shared his incredibly clear framework for swag. I’ll paraphrase here, but you should go read his post!

Make it different, but relevant. Different is easy – there’s plenty of swag nobody’s ever made. The hard part is making something unexpected that still says something true about your brand. A spoon really works for Granola. It would be strange for another brand, like Salesforce.

Make it something people want to use. Many brands nail functionality but completely miss on beauty. The benchmark Rob uses: would someone pay for this in a shop? If the answer is no, go back to the drawing board.

The moral of this merch muse: swag should be different, relevant, useful, and beautiful enough that people want to tell the story behind it (and therefore talk about your brand).

Three highly custom merch ideas that are worth the effort – and specific enough that you could brief your production vendor on them today.

Custom pen packs

This one is personal – I spent several years trying to get these made (my former team will laugh and/or roll their eyes when they see this). The concept is so simple, though. A quality name brand pen, like Le Pen or Poppin, produced in your exact brand colors with custom messaging imprinted or engraved. It could be your company values, an annual kickoff theme, a campaign slogan, an inside joke for employees – there are so many directions you could go. The packaging is also a huge opportunity: print a simple card with a cellophane wrapper, or create a custom box or branded sleeve. If anyone has actually pulled this off with a name brand pen, custom brand colors, and custom packaging – I’d genuinely love to hear how you did it (and who produced it!).

Oversized graphic tees

Last month I shared some maximalist merch ideas – this is a natural extension of that. The tee doesn’t have to be oversized (though that’s my personal preference), but the graphic should be. Picture a cool band tee with a graphic that fills the entire front or back, not a small logo on the chest. Stamp- and sticker-like motifs are having a moment right now and translate surprisingly well to B2B brands, especially in tech – you can pull in UI elements, product graphics, or brand iconography and make something that feels more “club” than “corporate”. This is also your best excuse to use every single brand color at once. Have your designer go crazy – they’ll love it.

Statement collars

A few years ago, my team at Cordial embroidered “be cordial” in script along the collar of a crewneck sweatshirt. Since then I’ve seen so many variations on this idea, and I still think it’s underutilized. The collar is highly visible on video calls, it’s unexpected and unique, and it gives you an opportunity to use something other than your logo. You could embroider a shared value, an aspirational phrase, a brand promise – something with a little warmth or intention behind it. Also, embroidery is key here because it elevates the placement in a way screen printing can’t always achieve, and the execution tends to be cleaner in a tighter space.

6 steps to creating demand for your swag

Most companies give swag away before anyone actually wants it. So swag ends up getting distributed, but very little of it is truly wanted. It’s worth understanding this nuance if you want to build a merch program that generates buzz (and business).

Here are six steps I’ve used to go from “stuff we all get” to “stuff we all want”:

Quality

This one is first because everything else on this list falls apart if the item itself is crap. For corporate swag, the bar is low (IMO). Ask yourself, “Would someone buy this?” and/or “Would they wear it if our logo wasn’t on it?” If the answer is no, start over.

• Prioritize name brands where it makes sense – L.L.Bean, Yeti, Moleskine, Le Pen. People can bank on the quality before they even touch or see it.

• Think beyond the item itself – materials, weight, finish. Go for the heavyweight hoodie, the custom packaging (vs. a poly mailer), the luxury engraved branding.

• Be intentional about the variety of what you’re offering. Brand colors for some items, neutrals for others. Bold logo placement on a hat, tonal embroidery on a fleece. Not everything needs to scream the brand or the full logo to be effective.

• Mix brand elements beyond just the logo – a tagline, a brand pattern, an inside reference that means something to the people receiving or wearing it.

Scarcity

Limited runs and drop schedules create anticipation. When swag feels exclusive or hard to get, people naturally want in. Tapping into FOMO goes a long way here.

• Run limited quantities. When something sells out or runs out, say so. You have to be ok with “disappointing” people – that’s the whole point. It creates demand.

• Create a drop schedule instead of an always-available catalog. Quarterly drops, seasonal items, event-only pieces. Build scarcity into your program by design.

• Keep access exclusive, at least at first. Internal team gets first access. Customers and partners get early access. Public store comes later, if at all.

• Write your messaging to signal exclusivity. “I don’t know if I can get one of those, but I’ll try” is the feeling you’re going for. Internal comms, social posts, and packaging should all make it feel like the swag is worth waiting for.

Choice

Giving your team a stake in the process before anything is ordered changes how they show up when it arrives. They’ll also rep the brand harder if they get to choose items.

• Run a survey before finalizing the collection. Let people vote on colors, types, even which name brand to go with between two options. The data is helpful.

• Tease the shortlist before the final selection. “We’re deciding between these three items – which would you actually wear?” gets people invested before anything is ordered.

• If you can, set up a points or credits system so your team can select the items they want. Paired with a limited drop model – or a print-on-demand model – this will create buzz, anticipation, conversation, and demand.

Influence

Your team is your first wave of brand ambassadors. Carve out part of your strategy to market to them internally – make it easy and rewarding for them to rep the brand.

• Encourage people to wear their brand swag on Zoom calls. It sounds small but it compounds when 20+ people are doing it. Customers will start asking questions.

• At your next company event, hire a photographer to capture candid shots of people in the swag, having a good time. That’s worth more than a product photo.

• Run a UGC campaign. Ask the team to post swag photos in Slack (or better yet, on social directly). Use these photos for employer branding assets.

• Reward participation with something they actually want: early access to the next drop, a premium item from the collection, a gift card, an extra PTO day.

• When a team member posts organically – amplify it immediately. Screenshot it, share it internally, and post it externally.

Hype

The drop itself is not the campaign, it’s everything that happens before the drop.

• Tease the collection before it’s ready. Behind-the-scenes photos of samples, flat lays, a blurred image with a launch date. Make people curious.

• Run a countdown internally – something simple like “3 days until the drop” works.

• Share the process, e.g. post a photo of the samples when they arrive. BTS content also helps your marketing/people teams feel appreciated for their efforts.

• Set a specific drop date and hold to it. Build trust around swag internally.

Reward

Once you have real demand, use it. Swag is one of the most underutilized incentive tools in marketing because most companies give swag away before anyone wants it.

• Use swag to incentivize advocacy. Ask team members to post about a company milestone, share a job posting, or leave a G2 or Glassdoor review – and reward them with access to the next drop or a premium item.

• Make swag the prize for internal competitions. Most referrals in a quarter, most creative use of the product, highest number of resolved tickets, etc.

• Use it to deepen customer relationships. When a customer hits a renewal, completes a big implementation, or hits a milestone with your product – send them something!

• When a customer or prospect posts about your swag unprompted, share that shit everywhere. LinkedIn, Slack, your next all-hands. That’s earned media, baby!

• Consider a waitlist for external access. Something like “join the list to get notified when the store opens” creates perceived demand and gives you a warm list to activate when it does.

The goal of using branded items to create demand is to shift swag as “something you distribute” to something people want to be associated with. Strive for that, and you’ll be ahead of nearly every other B2B company out there.

Merch muse #1: Airvet’s wiener dog pens

“I’m glad we don’t have any salespeople on the call, because I’m about to share one of their worst nightmares,” said Tess Pfeifle, Associate Marketing Director at Airvet during an ExitFive webinar last week. Her company was headed to a major HR conference without a booth and Tess bet everything on a piece of swag: a branded wiener dog pen. She’d also run a LinkedIn campaign to attendees and lookalikes around Chicago, A/B testing “Let’s talk at IBI.” against “Want a dog pen?”

In what I personally feel like is no surprise, the dog pen ad crushed the generic conference message. Even though the landing page technically “failed” with zero form fills, their campaign data showed that roughly 65% of show attendees had visited the page. The pens and a promise that Sugar (see photo below) would be onsite became the “booth” that attendees would look for.

Attendees walked the floor asking for both the dog pens and Airvet, and some even went to other pet-related vendors looking for them. The sales reps brought the exact pens featured in the ads and ended up booking 11 on-site meetings, 5 post-event meetings, and drove a 2000%+ ROI without ever paying for a booth.

If you know me, you know I love an all-out event activation, but this targeted use of swag was so effective at generating buzz and pipeline – I had to share.

Merch muse #2: Scrunch’s scrunchies

Last month I shared that if your brand name or product has a visual hook, you should lean into it. Well, I’m back at it again with an example from Scrunch, a data and analytics platform. They’ve been making the rounds at events with scrunchies and I can absolutely see why people are losing their minds over them.

The first reason this works is that the item is lightweight, affordable, and easy to travel with. It passes the practicality test with flying colors.

The second reason is the brand tie-in: Scrunch… giving away scrunchies... is so obvious that it’s almost unfair, haha. When your product name and your giveaway item are the same word, you’ve solved half the memorability problem in one fell swoop. The other half gets solved by scarcity and word of mouth, which in this case, happened organically at eTail. People were sending their colleagues to the booth and asking for extras to bring home. That’s real-life “swag demand” (see above!) – a quality item, a clear brand connection, and a crowd that did the marketing for them.

Swag shouldn’t try to be everything to everyone. It should be specific, timely, and tap into the recipient’s emotions. Here are three ideas worth stealing this month.

1. Board games

Many of us are craving time away from our screens. Board games like backgammon, checkers, Mancala, Connect Four, Jenga – games with colorful pieces and color-blocked boards – would be easy to customize to your brand. Go portable for conference swag bags, desk-sized for team member gifts, or commission oversized versions for company offsites. If your brand has two strong colors, lean into games where color-blocking works naturally (backgammon or checkers). And a giant Jenga set will make it’s way into event photos, which is great for your employer brand.

2. Maximalism

Fishwife’s tinned fish packaging is the gold standard IMO – vibrant, loud, busy as all hell. We’ve been seeing maximalism across so many consumer brands as the taste pendulum swings away from millennial minimalism. B2B companies also have an opportunity to stand out from the sea of sameness with psychedelic patterns, repeating graphics, and color saturation. C’mon, people just want to feel something!

I get it if your CMO isn’t up for this level of intensity on your LinkedIn ads. Doing so would likely change your brand anyway. So lean on swag as the testing ground – the tangible nature of merch is already pretty consumer brand-adjacent. Try it on tote bags, water bottles, or even just packaging to start. Trust me, a maximalist design will get more attention at a trade show than another neutral hat or hoodie.

3. Anything but pink on International Women’s Day

One of my favorite items I’ve produced was a blue crewneck, hand-embroidered by a local woman-owned business, for our women+ team members on International Women’s Day. We’d surveyed our team months prior – they said they wanted colorful, not neutral. The ladies loved it. It wasn’t performative and there was no “girl power” messaging. It was just our brand, expressed in a way that felt fresh and celebratory.

So with IWD coming up on March 8, 2026, work with a woman-owned vendor. Don’t default to pink or something cutesy. Make something your team would genuinely be proud to wear or use. And if you really want to do something radical for International Women’s Day, advocate for raises for the women on your team to address the gender wage gap. At a minimum, you could give them a day off.

Why do people even want to wear swag?

Think about the way people treat sharing content online. They only share if it makes them look good, feel something, or gives them a sense of belonging. Whether we like it or not, we’re all curators of our own personal brands (online and offline) – and we’re not going to wear something that compromises how we look or feel.

I find it helpful to understand some of the principles that drive wearability. Here are four that matter when it comes to corporate branded merch:

Social currency. People share things that make them look good or feel like an insider. This is why limited-edition drops work. This is why people wear branded items from companies they’re proud to work for. Your swag needs to communicate status, signal taste, or demonstrate insider knowledge. Ask yourself: Does wearing this make someone look cooler, smarter, or more connected? If not, it’s probably pretty mid.

Triggers. Good swag gets used repeatedly because it’s tied to a routine or context. A water bottle lives at the desk. A tote bag gets grabbed for groceries. A game sits on the conference table and gets shared with family. Ask yourself: When and where will someone reach for this? Is it solving an actual problem in their day, or is it just stuff?

Emotion. People wear and use things that make them feel something – pride, nostalgia, joy, rebellion. Ask yourself: What emotion are we trying to evoke? Is it aligned to the emotion we want people to associate with our brand?

Practical value. This is the obvious one, but it’s still the foundation. If your swag isn’t useful, none of the other principles matter. A poorly made tote that rips after one use isn’t tasteful. A notebook with paper that bleeds through doesn’t get used. Ask yourself: Would I use this if it didn’t have a logo on it? If the answer is no, start over.

When you combine these principles, you start creating items that people want. And when they actually wear your merch, and their affinity for your brand compounds.

P.S. If this concept is interesting to you, I highly recommend reading Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger. He explains the science behind why products, ideas, and stories become popular through word-of-mouth and social transmission.

Merch muse: Givebutter’s new hire kit

If your brand name or product has a visual hook, lean into it. Build a system around it. Make every piece tell a different version of the same story.

Givebutter is a nonprofit donation platform that’s gone all-in on their brand name. Their new hire welcome kit builds an entire branded universe around butter. The box arrives as a butter carton. Inside are t-shirts with company values as a to-do list (Be Awesome, Be Butter, Be Changemakers), pens with butter puns (”There’s no margarine for error” and “We’re churning out change”), stickers, notebooks, a mug – all butter-branded, all cohesive.

Yes, it’s fun and cute, but every single piece reinforces the brand story and helps their team relate to the company’s values – which also makes it strategic.

So many software companies play it safe and just slap their logo on every piece of new hire swag. Givebutter committed to the bit, and their new employees get an unboxing experience that feels special, makes them want to wear the merch, and gives them something to post about (the ultimate goal). And it’s what happens when you treat swag as an extension of your brand storytelling.

In 2026, we’re moving beyond Stanleys and New Me clichés, and instead creating things people will naturally reach for in their real lives. Here are a few ideas that strike the right balance between practical and trendy (again).

1. The Nalgene comeback

If something comes back around and it’s either cheap, comfortable, or truly nostalgic, you’ll find me leaning all the way in. Nalgene bottles have been re-emerging, and in a sea of Stanleys, it makes sense. They’re durable, easy to clean, genuinely useful, a blank canvas, and a little retro. I pinned a bunch of ideas I’m loving right now.

2. Yoga totes (with a mat pocket)

A good example of New Year energy done right. Bags with built-in yoga mat pockets are useful far beyond the yoga studio – they double as gym bags, weekend totes, grocery hauls – and they subtly align with new year, new you without being super cliche. I just got a canvas tote in Rome (screenprinted onsite!) and I’ve used it for everything.

3. Catchbox mics for event season

Not exactly traditional swag, but one of the most underrated brand tools for events. Catchbox mics are fun, functional, great for event engagement, and brandable but not overdone. They eliminate awkward mic runners, encourage participation, and add a visual brand moment during Q&A. I’ve personally bought one for every company I’ve worked at – for kickoffs, all-hands, and big meetings. (Not an ad!)

How to prioritize employee swag requests

If you manage swag, you already know this: everyone on your team has ideas, and not all of them can necessarily happen. The key is to focus less on shutting down ideas, and more on introducing structure (without killing enthusiasm). Here’s how to do that.

Start with audience fit and critical mass. Swag doesn’t need to be for everyone, but it does need a meaningful audience. Ask: Who is this actually for? Employees, customers, event attendees? Is there a critical mass of people who would genuinely reach for this? Culture matters here. Outdoorsy teams, developer-heavy orgs, parents, remote-first companies – different audiences connect with different items. Employee-requested swag is usually for employees. That’s okay. People connect more deeply with swag when they feel seen and involved – as long as expectations are set that not every idea will make the cut.

Create merch guidelines and socialize them. Create simple brand guidelines for your swag, including things like your quality bar, materials, aesthetics, logo usage, sustainability standards, use cases, etc. Once the guidelines exist, decisions stop being personal. An idea isn’t rejected because it’s “bad” – it just doesn’t meet the criteria (or often, the budget). This protects your brand and your relationships, and honestly makes for better swag overall.

Use a survey to test demand before committing. Instead of debating ideas in Slack, put them to work. At the end of each year (or quarter), collect swag requests and turn them into a survey. The requestor gets to see their idea in the mix and feels heard – and you get real data on what people actually want. It’s low effort and avoids misjudgments as to what will be popular with your team.

Crowdsource intentionally. Include one or two crowd-sourced items in your quarterly or annual drops (but only if they meet your guidelines and hit critical mass). This creates buy-in, excitement, participation without turning your swag program into a free-for-all. Swag works best when it’s curated, but your team should still feel part of the journey and decision-making process.

Merch muse: Marine Layer’s custom patch bars

One of the most obvious truths heading into 2026: customization is an expectation. In 2025, embroidery had a major moment (names, initials, symbols everywhere). The next evolution is patches, which are faster, more flexible, and infinitely more scalable.

Brands like Marine Layer are leaning in by turning retail spaces into patch bars – transforming simple garments into personal pieces on the spot. Customization becomes a reason to linger, participate, and connect with the brand in real time.

This same idea works beautifully in B2B marketing. Around this time last year, Cordial brought patch customization to life during a custom activation with Levi's, turning denim jackets into one-of-one keepsakes instead of unmemorable swag.

I think we can all agree that personalization isn’t going anywhere. Patches are just the current manifestation. They’re especially powerful when the experience – the actual moment of customization – becomes part of the core memory (and a reason to wear and keep the item in rotation).

Winter gifting doesn’t need to be predictable or overly thematic. If you want to avoid the annual fleece blanket and cocoa kit combo this year, here are a few swag/gift ideas worth considering.

1. Packable outerwear

Lightweight, travel-friendly layers that fold into their own pouch or pocket. Minimal branding. Elevated enough that people actually bring it on trips. They won’t use it every day but they know they can rely on it. (Reliability = great brand association)

2. Local, shelf-stable goods

Lean into your brand’s geography, HQ or origin story. Support a local business and avoid the overdone/mass-produced gift baskets. Ideas: small-batch cocoa, chai concentrates, tea blends, house-made spice mix. People love a gift they can drink, cook with, or share. Long story short – support local and tie in your origin story while you’re at it.

3. Specialty socks

(”Socks? For winter? Groundbreaking.”) Hear me out – compression socks for the frequent flyers. Grippy socks for the Pilates girlies. Cashmere for everyone else. Specialty items show you’re paying attention to your employees’ and clients’ interests. And socks don’t have to be boring, they just need to be quality, otherwise you’re lighting your swag budget on fire.

4. Touchland hand sanitizers

Do not put your logo on isopropyl hand sanitizer (do yourself a favor and close the 4imprint tab). Touchland dominates the hand sanny category with their packaging, scents, colors – so don’t fight it – lean in! Choose one in a prominent brand color and include it in your winter swag gift boxes (in other words: give the people what they want).

How to get your CFO to approve a swag budget

Securing budget for swag is rarely about the items themselves. It’s about whether the spend is intentional, aligned to business goals, and managed responsibly. Most CFOs don’t hate swag, but they do hate waste and uncontrolled costs. It needs to make sense to a finance leader, so you’ll need to speak their language when making the ask.

Reframe how you talk about swag. Avoid positioning it as giveaways or perks or worst of all – “freebies”. That kinda suggests there’s no return on investment. Instead, reference swag as physical brand assets for specific marketing and business initiatives. The language you use signals whether this is discretionary spend or a strategic investment. When swag is framed as part of brand experience, retention, or demand support, it enters a more serious budget conversation.

Tie the request to a concrete business moment. Swag is easiest to fund when it supports something that already exists, such as a product launch, a trade show, a door opener for sales, a customer milestone, new hire onboarding, or change management initiatives. Asking for a general swag budget feels vague; asking for support tied to a specific initiative feels planned, intentional, and integrated. The more clearly you connect the spend to an outcome the business already values, the less friction you’ll encounter.

Define what success looks like in advance. CFOs typically understand that not every marketing investment is directly attributable to revenue. Success measurement might look like increased booth traffic at an event, stronger customer engagement during renewal cycles, or improved employee participation and retention. Be clear that the goal is directional insight, not false precision.

Position the initiative as a pilot. A time-bound test with a clear budget cap and a plan to report learnings back to leadership reduces perceived risk. It shows discipline and accountability, and it creates room to iterate based on what worked the first time.

When swag is treated as a managed program with measurable goals rather than an ad hoc expense, the conversation and perception shifts. You’re no longer asking for money to buy “stuff we all get”, you’re asking for budget to support the growth of the business.

Merch muse: ON24’s Ugly Christmas Sweaters

ON24’s ugly Christmas sweater is such a strong example of merch that works because it’s rooted in an existing brand idea. ON24 uses “webinerd” in their marketing and social media, and the community engages with it regularly. For the holidays, ON24 turned it into a limited-edition, fully custom knit sweater and I’m low-key obsessed. This is a clear example of seasonal merch used to reinforce brand identity and connection, not just to hand out another holiday item. Yeah it’s ugly, but that’s the whole point.

Last month I shared some swag ideas and predictions for fall event season. It's now giving season, but please – spare your team/clients the holiday cookie tins and another branded mug.

1. Premium travel accessories

Not the $5 Amazon crap we can all order on a moment’s notice (and/or might spark when you plug it in). Think QUALITY and expensive for what it is. Sleek universal travel adapters, Instagrammy refillable containers, monogrammed leather luggage tags, 100% silk eye masks, you get the vibe. The priority should be taste, not marketing budget. And the absolute minimum amount of branding. A freaking whisper of your logo, k!?

2. Sweatpants

A few years ago we released an oversized hoodie in the Cordial brand store. It wasn’t revolutionary, but it was by far the most popular and most requested swag of all time. So we leaned in and got matching sweatpants. Note: it might result in CEO/CMO questions (“How will anyone see our brand if people are wearing our swag in the house?” or “Why would we put our logo on such casual clothing?”). But this is for brand affinity, not brand awareness. Trust.

3. Gifts that give back

If you’re going to bulk order holiday gifts this year, seek out companies that give back in some way. I gravitate toward those that operate on a buy-one-give-one model (check out Bombas and Sackcloth & Ashes).

4. Relevance

Relevance is a major component of good swag/merch/gifts. What are people doing between now and the end of the year? They’re eating, drinking, traveling, hosting, spending time with family, avoiding spending time with family, getting sick, getting excited about winter, getting excited about the holidays – and they’re probably talking about all of it in slack channels. Your team has already self-identified in interest-based groups (e.g. cooking, kids, pets, sports, travel, wine club, book club, etc). Choose 3-5 different gifts or gift sets and send a survey – who doesn’t love avoiding a few minutes of work to choose a free gift?

Why your brand should have merch guidelines

The difference between forgettable and memorable swag isn’t usually your budget, it’s your approach. Start by creating “merch guidelines” – production principles that align with your company’s values and culture.

To give you an example, here are the brand merch guidelines I created for a client:

Thoughtful. Thoughtfulness shapes our entire product selection process. We strive to source from manufacturers with a positive impact (think sustainability or philanthropy), and we love to support our retail customer brands.

Imaginative. We embrace creative, fresh, and unique interpretations of our brand, curating each piece of merch for both WFH and IRL. We simply refuse to create boring, been-there-done-that corporate swag.

Purposeful. We strive for purposeful, useful, practical, and high-quality items that you'll reach for again and again. We choose name brands whenever possible, and often create fully custom products.

With a clear philosophy or set of guiding principles, your swag becomes more than just stuff with your logo on it. Think of your merch as a tangible extension of your brand story.

Merch muse: Cordial’s bodega trade show booth

When most trade show booths look like billboards, we designed Cordial’s as a New York bodega – shelves stocked with cereal boxes featuring our products, scratch-off tickets, newspapers, curated clutter.

What made it work were the shared reference points. The bodega pulled from familiarity and visual memory. People felt like they'd been there before, which lowered the barrier to entry. There were plenty of opportunities for physical participation through scratch-offs and design-your-own swag activations. We were exhibiting at Shoptalk, and were surrounded by retail marketers who recognize good design. We built for them, not for everyone.

The takeaway: use memory as an anchor, give people something to do with their hands, and design for the culture of the event, not just your category. Trade show booths are expensive, so make yours feel like an experience, not an ad.

Fall conference season is in full swing, but I’m still predicting (hoping) we see some of these ideas come to life this year.

1. Corduroy hats

They’re textural, nostalgic, and seasonal. Brand awareness smack on top of attendee heads. They’re easy to pack and travel with. But please for the love of whatever god you believe in, do not plaster your full-size company logo front and center.

2. Creative food containers

Give people something to photograph. Branded pizza boxes stacked high, to-go wine bags (someone do this!!!), or coffee sleeves that fold into an aesthetic magazine carrier. This stuff won’t make it into the carry-on but there’s a good chance it’ll make it onto the internet.

3. Clear branded moments

Literally CLEAR! Transparent business cards. Acrylic lanyards. Lucite keychains. Idk, clear just feels cool, modern, lightweight, futuristic. Like clarity without the corporate yuck. (Until it’s played out…)

4. Printed newspapers

Newspapers have definitely made a comeback, in both DTC & B2B activations. They’re overdue, IMO. A printed “conference edition” gives you the opportunity to curate brand stories. It’s analog (we love) and it’s photogenic by design. Cordial did this at Shoptalk Spring this year and it slapped.

The catchy, brand-y framework here: Design swag and experiences that are either wearable or shareable – bonus points for both, obviously.

What happens when you treat swag as a channel

Most companies treat swag as an afterthought – something you order in bulk before a conference and forget about until the next one. That’s a missed opportunity.

When done well, brand merch is one of the most underrated tools in your marketing stack. It’s interactive content. It’s a physical touchpoint. It’s employer brand, culture, and advocacy – all in one. Here’s how I know:

In 2023, my team noticed that our team members – new and tenured – were consistently and organically wearing company merch. Not because they had to, but because they wanted to. That kind of enthusiasm is rare, and it’s worth capitalizing on.

So we built a brand store as a curated, always-on experience designed to:

• Increase what I call “brand demand” – the pull people feel toward your brand

• Drive employee engagement and a sense of belonging

• Create organic advocacy (e.g., when people rep your brand in their daily lives)

• Build a new digital footprint and lay the foundation for broader use cases

We also saved money and streamlined operations – but that’s a story for another time.

The brand store became a differentiated channel. It worked because the merch authentically reflected our brand’s values. The enthusiasm was magnetic because each item served a purpose and made the wearer feel like they were part of the club.

If your team isn’t excited to wear your “brand merch”, the problem probably isn’t the merch – it could be a deeper cultural issue, or simply a disconnect between your swag and the company’s values.

Merch muse: Levi’s denim jacket activation

Thinking back to the time my team at Cordial turned our event merch into a co-branded moment with one of the most iconic brands in the world.

We could have handed out Cordial-branded swag, but instead we set up live embroidery and patch customization on Levi’s denim jackets. The experience tied directly into an innovation announcement featuring Levi’s as a pilot customer, a blog collaboration on Levi’s Unzipped – and as one of our customers – the CDO of Levi’s was a speaker at the event.

The customization gave attendees a reason to linger, participate, and walk away with something genuinely personal. And because the activation was built around a real partnership, it had credibility. It felt intentional, not gimmicky.

This is the difference between conference swag (reminder that “swag” stands for Stuff We All Get) and brand merch that does actual work. One ends up in a hotel room trash can. The other becomes a conversation piece people wear for years.

The bar for event merch is still shockingly low. If you’re planning an event and the merch conversation starts with “what can we get in time?” – you’re already behind.