Hi Merchies,

It’s a funny thing writing a newsletter on merch. Sometimes the topic on both our contributions is aligned and a consistent storyline throughout.

Today is not one of those days.

Today we talk about McDonalds in China releasing a backpack with side pockets for fries, crowd sourced from the crafting community, released on the 12th year of Big Fries Day.

We also talk about mega global company Notion sourcing their hats in Australia from a small indie operation in Byron Bay, so as to paint a picture of ‘there’s no one way to do this.’

Also a mate of ours implanted an NFC chip in her fingernails.

On to the merch!

Gaz & Kayla

Something extremely my vibe passed my desk this week. TBH, I probably needed it as have been neck-deep in organising a conference in Sydney for ~200 of Aus’ top marketers (Generate) and it’s a case of IYKYK for anyone who has done the same before. Running conferences is hard! And extremely brain-space consuming, so I need all the pleasant distractions I can get!

I spotted this release this week: McDonalds China releasing a Big Fries Backpack, which really hones in on the fries factor and would be purchased in an instant if available to me. Look. At. It.

You can read the story of that HERE but the TLDR is craft blogger Daomeidan created a handmade concept, which was so well received it extended into an officially licensed product, as part of the annual Big Fries Campaign.

I love this as it’s a result of the call to action for the Macca’s/Mickey D’s fan community in China who love creating merch and knick-knacks referencing all the things we know so well, childhood reminding or otherwise.

“Every element of the backpack references a familiar part of a McDonald’s order. The silhouette draws on the chain’s brown paper delivery bags, while oversized golden arches frame the front. Fries-carton pockets on either side let wearers snack while walking; a dedicated holder keeps ketchup packets within reach, and an oversized receipt hangs from the bag to complete the oversized takeaway illusion.”

This was the 12th annual Big Fries Day, and a fun fact is that this campaign is built around a Chinese linguistic coincidence. The traditional solar term 大暑 (Dashu), meaning Great Heat, is pronounced similarly to 大薯, meaning large fries. The more you know!

Love love love the emphasis on the fan community- empower the people to interact and express themselves with their own creations, and then integrate those submissions into officially licensed merch. This doesn’t feel like a thing that would exist here in Sydney (too much bureaucracy locally at Ronald’s crib) but it should!

Think about if your company has some mega fans, seek their opinions on great merch ideas they would want to see. Have something people would want to express themselves visually about, such as this? Run a competition, share the CTA out far and wide, anything!

I got to chatting to the Notion team at a recent event - they have very nice merch actually, with the Aus team of late rocking some sick rust coloured chore jackets, extremely good drip.

Giveaways to people at their events have from what I’ve noticed been sort of what you’d expect: tote bags, hats, and I think notebooks and pens..

But then I got told a little story of how the hats came to be, and it warmed me to my core. Very simply because the person organising the fit - Notion’s Head of Marketing in APAC, Sophie Mckay - wanted a very specific style and a very specific fit and decided on a very particular producer for their very specific drip.

I pinged Sophie to get the lowdown on sourcing *THE PERFECT HAT* 👇

(PS in addition, there was a lil story on the internet of Product Designer Freya Stockman losing her Notion hat, and after putting the callout on LinkedIn, went on her own odyssey to eventually receive a new one in her hot hands. Part 1 and Part 2 of that story, and spoiler alert, no Laestrygonians in that tale)

“We love our merch and it was something that I really wanted to get right when I started at Notion. I was the first marketing person here in APAC and when I started I spent so much time on really making sure I found the perfect merch to match the quality of our Notion brand.

I had tons of samples sent to the office, nothing was really working. I then took a moment and thought what cap do I like to wear the most myself personally and it is a hat from Feels Pilates Northern Beaches which is my sister in-law’s reformer pilates studio.

I reached out to her and asked where she got her caps made and it turns out it is a little merch place in Byron Bay - Organic Tees run by Jeanette Darbyshire. She really takes the time to make sure we nail the sample for the branding!”

*This was a non-sponsored feature of Notion, just like the story and unpacking the process of how merch comes to be, no matter the size of the company. Often, that’s just one specific person solving and sourcing it all at the beginning, as I know all too well from my past projects/roles.

This to me is analogous to those times you might be needing to source a run of t-shirts as giveaways to customers or whoever will cop it. You coulddd order a bulk-run of Gildan standard fit t-shirts. But they’ll essentially disintegrate after a few washes, stain easily, shrink extremely fast so it barely fits, and just generally feels like the terrible quality you hoped it wouldn’t be when cheapskate-you picked the quantity and pressed the ‘bulk order’ button.

Pay the extra bucks for the good stuff. High quality is high quality for a reason. And if you need a recommendation on a high quality style, I know a certain merch newsletter that might have opinions on that!

Check out the DRIP DROP Sublime for more merch inspo