Hi,

German companies & their writing instruments!

Defense companies & their chore jackets!

Never light on topics to cover when it comes to company merch over here, but if you have any suggestions or profiles from the internet that you think we should be covering in DRIP DROP - reply to this email, we’d love to hear from you!

Oh, and we’re hitting 500 subscribers right about…. *now *

That’s 500 merch enthusiasts, who now have a place to worship great merch. Praise be 🙏

‼ Also, side-quest, but THIS ACTIVATION from A&W was incredible. An entire smash burger theme taken to the extreme, and now those smash root beer glasses are desired for the collection. That, would be some merch to savour.

If you’re a fountain pen person you’d be familiar with the Kaweco brand, a German company that’s been producing “writing instruments” since 1889. They don’t have much ‘merch’ per se, but they do have a lot of limited edition pens that require the customer to do something in order to have the opportunity to buy a specific pen, namely, attend an event.

The upcoming release is a glow in the dark variety, which requires you to attend any of the DIY event series they’re hosting.

2026 is the third year they’re doing it, only at brick and mortar retailers. The pens are made up of seven pieces and as the event name suggests, you assemble it yourself at the event using Kaweco machinery!

They do this to support retailers and keep the in-store experience something to cherish, and have done several other limited edition releases for event celebrations including the 1972 Munich Olympics, Hello Kitty’s 50th anniversary, and to collaborate with specific stores such as Daikanyama Tsutaya Bookstore with the emperor penguin design.

These pens go for hundreds of dollars on reseller sites, there’s quite a market for them!

It’s really interesting that the event doesn’t seem to require RSVPs (at least for Milligram if you’re in AUS!) and this is being used as a draw card to get foot traffic in the store.

If you’re in event marketing, you know the sad reality that the industry benchmark for attendance is ~50% of sign ups, and having exclusive merch is one way to ensure people show up.

If you can’t fork out pens worth hundreds of dollars, you’ve got your classic swag options like stickers and notebooks, but you can also look to a smaller volume of luxury items for the first X number of people to show up, hand out at random, or have a door prize to get the same attendance boost!

Short one from me today, with a small profile on drops-done-by-defence-companies, in case you weren’t aware. Lockheed Martin. Palantir. First fashion… then fired weapons.

Palantir are, as they state vaguely: building software that empowers organisations to effectively integrate their data, decisions, and operations. They’ve also gone hard on blatantly producing the type of jacket plenty would want in their wardrobe roster (I’m a habitual chore jacket wearer).

But, I guess, this is the type of drop that some are chill with, and some have thrown into our suggested profile pieces for DRIP DROP as a ‘evil companies who do merch’ so I guess from my side, it’s a “Nah, wouldn’t wear that personally.”

Great profile on this merch choice on @thisisantwon IG HERE btw.

I’d link you to their merch store so you can peruse yourself, but it’s down now! But plenty of rabbit-holes to dive down on the matter on the glorious WWW.

Uh…look, don’t know - what merch should you do if you’re a defense company? I guess there is two sides of the taste coin here: taste in merch, and then taste in curation, so it’s a (Y) always for a chore jacket and a (“It Depends”) for repping a company with one.

Check out the DRIP DROP Sublime for more merch inspo