Hi merchies,

Every couple of issues we like to look three months into the future to give you some ideas of what merch to produce in the meantime for any seasonal campaigns you might be running.

September is stacked with events, culture, and fun that you can hitch a ride on to stand out with timely, strategic merch. Here’s our rapid-fire list:

Talk about 🔥🔥🔥

The Y2K and nostalgia wave are nothing new, but what is surprising is the lengths to which these trends reach. As phone cameras have gotten good enough to compete with actual professional cameras, the novelty camera has made a fun comeback!

Here we’ve got a digital Miffy branded camera, an analogue 35mm Peanuts camera (and film!), and lastly a keyring sized digicam included with Le Sserafim’s album (which, yes, is packaged in a can) with space for an SD card and a screen on the back.

Giving out a camera might be out of your budget, but the lesson to take from this one is people love the act of taking photos and making memories. If you’re doing a conference/expo, consider having a photobooth (with custom frame design on the print out!) or gift magnetic frames for people to stick photos on their fridge, a stand to clip a photo to on their desk, or other display item.

The trick here is no gaudy company branding, please. Something subtle, or combining it with a card that includes your logo and message related to the item is much nicer to receive and more likely for the recipient to keep/use the item.

There’s plenty of simple messages like “working with you has been so memorable” or “products built to last, just like your favourite memory” go so easily with this!

Yeah that’s right. I profiled 2 merch instances instead of 1 this week. Because I can.

One from the internet, and one from my very own hometown of Melbourne Australia (I say this now because we actually have heaps of international subscribers now, very cool)

Ok, I am obviously an advocate for thinking imaginatively with one’s merch for your employees, but I gotta say when I saw these new Slack Air Max’s, my first thought was *Australian accent* “fahhhh-kkkking ugly, mate.“

But then I saw the Nike Dunk Low version, and softened a little. Forgive me while I get a tad pretentious here, but for me, it’s really the difference between the use of the Aubergine primary colour, which looks a little tacky on the Air Max’s, and not too shabby on the dunks, which are complimented nicely by the splatter effect of prime colours on the midsole, which adds some nice additional texture and frankly, looks a hell of a lot nicer.

I couldn’t possibly say categorically that they look nicer, however, until Slack send me a pair so I can make the final judgment IRL. You can read more about the drop HERE

It’s actually relatively easy to source some custom kicks - at the scale of Slack it would be a nightmare - but for others, splashing out on a small range for a small team is perfectly achievable. The crew at TechVisa did this (check that HERE) and if I had to take a guess at theirs: maybe $170-$180AUD per pair? And infinite conversations about them afterwards, which is what occurred at the Southstart conference in Adelaide where they rocked up wearing them. Anyhoo MY POINT IS it can be done but for christs sakes just ensure they look good too!!

I’m a fan of Melbourne-born HEX, who do a lot of work empowering young people all around the world with future skills and entrepreneurial career pathways via a number of programs and products. 10K+ students and counting.

They popped up at the education conference EDUtech recently, and went all out with a F1 theme for it: hectic long sleeve pit-crew styled uniforms, fuel voucher giveaways (v important right now), personalised keyrings and more.

As opposed to the sheer laziness a lot of companies would exhibit in their exhibits - especially in Australian trade shows - it was nice to see a local company putting a bunch of effort into effective rather than splashy - or worse - boring displays with no engagement at all. Very fun way to engage meaningfully.

This is more a general “think-outside-the-box-here” for the booth aspect if that’s your vibe upcoming. You’re there to get customers and you’re what? Handing out flyers in front of a corflute sign with mocked-up images on canva? C’mon, get creative! The American trade shows show the (insanely well funded mind you) tech companies going absolutely overboard with custom everything, but you can find a way to have some fun with it. As always, for a healthy dose of inspo, check out the date on Days of the Year and see if there is some meaningful world day to tie a theme into.

Don’t forget we’ve now got Tiktok, Insta, and LinkedIn. Posts are being prepped as we speak, even if they look a little empty right now!

Check out the DRIP DROP Sublime for more merch inspo