WHAT’S HOT🔥
Hi Merchies,
Relatively short features from Gaz and Kayla this week, but it’s been a bonkers news cycle with quite a few stories in the links section so don’t skip that!
800 readers, how ‘bout that! Since theres a bit going on in the wide world of sports at the moment (🇦🇺 hanging on in the World Cup ⚽) we do a little crossover by focusing on sports-themed merch, referencing a few pieces available now and a few pieces promoted in years past. Plus (forgot about this) but Mark Cuban hates swag, so there ya go.
👕 💧
KAYLA’S DR⚡️P
My local pub trivia guy has more strategic merch than most companies
If you’ve been to pub trivia, you know the host is the make or break of a good night vs a “I regret coming” event. My local (Philter in Marrickville) trivia has an amazing host, who not only does a great spread of question categories, but also comes prepared with his own merch.
In addition to your standard questions, there’s one anagram question (this week’s was SEE MILLIONS and the clue was “sportsman” - reply with your guesses) and a number guessing mid-trivia game to win a free round of drinks where you have to stand up the front with your answer displayed.
For these games specifically, Neil provides notepads to work out your answers on, wonderfully branded. He of course also provides pens and the answer sheets, also branded. It’s smart business! It’s functional, cheap, provides a better customer experience and allows for him to customise the question types as his unique differentiator, and any photos shared on social media includes his details.
MAKE IT YOUR OWN
The merch itself is super simple - a notepad a pen which we actually advocate against in a lot of scenarios. But, it’s a paper based experience and phones are banned during question time so it makes sense.
What environment is your product used in that creates unique requirements for useful tools? A question to noodle on.
GAZ’S DR💧P
S.R.E.A.M (Sports Rules Everything Around Me)
I am honestly a freak for sports. I watch ‘em all. I am probably a by-product of living in sports mad Melbourne after all, but I am spoilt for choice on what to watch live locally, and I am spoiled for choice on what I can watch from my couch right now.
World Cup. Wimbledon. F1 Grand Prix’s galore. NBA Finals replays. AFL, NRL, MLB… friggin’ Gaelic Football if they showed it… I would tune in.
In the merch game, you can of course design your logo in Canva in a couple of seconds and then go slap it on a shitty quality Gildan t-shirt that disintegrates after one sweaty walk through Central Station, Sydney. That is your right to do.
But you could also create some custom sports themed company merch, which in my extremely biased opinion, is much better. “You mustn’t be afraid to dream sream a little bigger darling,” as the quote from that movie goes.
Posthog, Posthog, Punters
UNFORTUNATELY, what I’m seeking ain’t as heavily in production or promoted from what I could ascertain on a quick search, but those wiley bastards from Posthog who I did a write-up about last week, dropped another zinger in the past week: a cycling jersey, sitting nicely alongside their existing football themed gear (mens and womens options too)
I couldn’t go without shouting out one of my all-time fav pubs too: Punters Club in Fitzroy, Melbourne: an outrageously good time for a beer, some footy, some gigs and now, some great football themed merch being rocked by the crew thanks to Knickerbocker. Check that release out HERE
Which then reminded me of I think the best merch I’ve seen produced, which was by prev-featured-on-DRIP-DROP Jacky Winter, an illustration and animation agency based in Melbourne, London and New York.
They commissioned Kridgett Kreations to make this custom ice hockey top a reality (founder Jeremy Wortsman is a hockey tragic), then decked out the whole team in the kit and sent the photo out as their annual holiday card. So cool, in fact, it would probably be a large reason for me in why DRIP DROP even got started, such was my appreciation for that effort. You can read about the process of commissioning works such as those jerseys HERE
Lastly, got tagged in this post on LinkedIn which mentioned Mark Cuban (rich, American, sports guy, owned the Dallas Mavericks at one point) who said years ago a somewhat notorious statement advising startups to “Never Buy Swag” as part of a list of his commandments.
You’ve obviously not seen my mood board and a couple of pieces I’m sreaming up for some companies as we speak, Mark!
MAKE IT YOUR OWN
Easy-Peasy. Go contact Kridgett Kreations if you want some custom sports merch and apparel created, they have an endless amount of inspo on their IG.
GET INTO IT
*Gaz coded message* Since I like to rep my city of Melbourne, I was actually reminded recently of this local crew RK Threads who do heaps of custom embroidery, including for Uniqlo. They have a fantastic Instagram account, well worth following as Oscar who runs it is also an awesome talent on camera. (I still rock the custom embroidered Fathers Day sweater from RK to this day)
Base44 announced a program to earn free swag through rising up the ranks of being a power user on their platform, which led to me finding out they have a regular merch store too!
It’s Nice That has a new editorial series on fandoms, and one of the features is The bootleg factor: when unofficial design beats the master brand, which let’s be honest, fans really do make 🔥 bootleg merch
Does this count as merch or is it just really cool? Dictionary of the Illegible is a book by Laurenz Brunner who has collected completely illegible things, and the site allows you to browse quite a few pages of the book to see how cool this collection actually is!
Casual Archivist did a short and sweet history of the sports pennant, those little felt triangle flags! LOVE finding out that something started as DIY fan made merch.
OpenAI have announced a custom keyboard, designed to speed up AI coding workflows.
Thanks for reading! Kayla & Gaz