Branded merchandise as a promotion tool

Why merchandise often ends up in the closet and doesn't work for the brand

The answer is prosaic: people keep things that are useful. 78% of consumers explain that they keep branded items precisely because of functionality — not because of sympathy for the company. A beautiful print without practical value loses to a boring, but convenient water bottle. This is a key psychological fork when launching merchandise: it either solves a person's everyday task or becomes garbage with a logo.

There is also a second side of the coin — reputational. 70% of consumers directly associate the quality of merchandise with the quality of the company itself. A cheap t-shirt that fades after the first wash doesn't work for brand recognition, but against the brand: the person concludes that the company's product is also unreliable. Bad merchandise is not a neutral zero, but a minus.

How to measure the effectiveness of merchandise: ROI, OTS, CPT

Merchandise often falls out of marketing reporting simply because it's hard to compare it to anything else. In reality, the metrics are the same as for media advertising, just calculated differently.

• OTS (opportunities to see) — the number of visual contacts over the product's lifecycle. For a t-shirt or tote bag, this is thousands of impressions: clothing 'works' in transport, on the street, in the office.
• CPT / CPI (cost per thousand / cost per impression) — cost per contact. This is where merchandise wins over most channels: fractions of a cent versus rubles and dozens of rubles in digital.
• Reach at event — According to SberMarketing and MAER data, one person in branded clothing attracts attention to about 1533 people per hour in Moscow and 1836 people per hour in Yekaterinburg. This makes merch especially effective at trade shows and in places with crowds.
• Organic reach — 66% of merch recipients talk about it to others or post it in social media, adding free digital reach on top.
• CSI (customer satisfaction index) — A case study by SberMarketing showed a 4% increase in CSI when merch was systematically used in customer programs.

The formula for calculation is simple: total costs for a merch batch are divided by the predicted number of contacts (OTS), multiplied by the product's lifespan. Then the result is compared with CPT of other channels in the media plan — and merch almost always wins on price, but loses on manageability: it's impossible to accurately predict who and where will wear a t-shirt a month from now.

How to choose the type of merch for a task and audience

The mistake of most merch briefs is choosing a category 'by the marketer's taste', not by task. Every task has a logic: if the goal is long-term contact with the audience, a product that lives in everyday life for months is needed; if the goal is virality at an event, effect and a photo opportunity are more important.

When choosing, it's worth keeping in mind the top desired categories: clothing, smart accessories, and practical home goods consistently outperform souvenir trinkets like pens and keychains — the latter are long perceived as formality, not a gift.

Merch as part of the brand ecosystem, not a one-time campaign

Most of the materials about merch consider it in isolation: ordered a batch of t-shirts, distributed at the event, forgot about it. This is a strategic gap. Merch gains multiple strength if it is built into existing brand activities, rather than existing on its own.

In PR logic, merch becomes an informational hook if it is released as a limited series for product launch or collaboration with another brand — then 66% of recipients who share the find on social networks turn into a free media channel. In HR functions, merch works for retention: a quality set for new employees creates a sense of belonging to the company from the first day, rather than being perceived as a formal bonus. In customer programs, merch should logically be tied to CSI growth points — to give it not 'just like that', but at moments significant for the relationship with the customer: closing a deal, anniversary of cooperation, solving a complex case.

Frequent mistakes when launching merch

1. Merch without function. Choosing an eye-catching but useless item — a predictable path to the wardrobe or trash can.
2. Saving on quality. Cheap material conveys cheap reputation — the effect works against the brand, not for it.
3. Lack of efficiency calculation. Without OTS, CPT metrics and comparison with other channels, merch turns into a budget item 'just in case', which is the first to be cut during cost-saving.
4. Isolation from marketing strategy. Merch not tied to an event, collaboration or customer program works weaker than it could.
5. Ignoring audience segmentation. The same design for customers, employees and partners — a way to not fit into any of the groups exactly.

Growth in average order value for merch — from 53 900 to 66 310 rubles per year, according to data from 2024 year — indicates that the market itself is shifting towards more meaningful and quality orders. Companies stop ordering 'what is cheaper', and begin to consider efficiency and integrate merch into the overall strategy — and it is exactly this approach that gives measurable results, not just a beautiful box with a logo.