The Backpack: Issue #23

CEO Summit: Trust, Transparency, and Change

The promotional products industry has traditionally been a very carefully guarded business. Distributors, worried about competition, once made winning a zero-sum game. But at commonsku, if there’s one legacy of change we hope to continue to bring about, it’s the spirit of community over competition through collaboration. This past week, we continued that mission by hosting around 20 top executives at our second CEO Summit, held in the beautiful Bisha Hotel in downtown Toronto. What a great time of all-day, best-practice sharing, check out the details here!

The Supplier Off-Road skucamp Chat 

Chatting with three of the industry’s leading suppliers at a live event is a conversation that's much like a four-wheeled, off-road excursion, any trail you decide to take, these pros are ready for the risk! Neil Ringle, CEO at PCNA, Dan Pantano, President and CEO at alphabroder prime, and CJ Schmidt, President and CEO at Hit Promotional Products joined us at skucamp to talk robotics, China, sustainability, and more, follow the trail here!

New Gorgeous Poster Theme on Shops!

We rolled out a new poster theme for shops and now you can have big, bold, gorgeous images and a modern navigation to help your client’s brand shine. It’s simple, elegant, and perfect for today’s buyer! And with the Unsplash integration, you have thousands of options to make it pop! Don’t have a client shop on commonsku yet? Why not?

NYT Asks: “Is the Literary Hat the New Tote Bag?”

You probably didn’t have “boring literary cap outrages the internet to the tune of 1.8 million views” on your 2023 bingo card, but here we are. The shop at the center of the outrage (and love) is Minor Canon, created by Saelen Twerdy, a Montreal Art Critic and Editor. What was meant to be a small passion project (that no one would hardly even know about) erupted into the annals of viral history after his tweet garnered millions of views. Twerdy, chastised for creating merch without authors’ consent, took the offending merch down, but he also struck a chord with book fans who wanted their Annie Ernaux hat. Merch lesson? Well, the obv: get licensing rights. But also note: there are millions of “minor” merch opportunities in the margins (heh) of niche audiences. Who knew the bookish were so easily lit?! 😂

The Magic of the Merch Haul

Here’s a phenom you should pay attention to backpacker: Open TikTok and type in “merch haul.” What you’ll see is clip after clip of fans displaying the merch they brought back from shows. Now, we kinda get it, a merch haul from Olivia Rodrigo, Eras Tour, SZA, Morgan Wallen… but what about brands? Like… what if you were simply a boring old brand like Bushes Baked Beans, sittin’ on a grocery store shelf all lonely and quiet-like, waiting for you holiday crock-pot party? Think you got any fans out there? Think again. Merch lesson: Emotional connection. Merch creates magic that no other advertising can. It’s personal, intimate, and a unique way to express your love for SZA, Taylor, baked beans, or whatever your freak flag wants to salute. No judgment, even if we catch you wearing this sweater. All the merch love to ya!

Spotify Drops Merch Hub to Highlight Your Embarrassing Listens

Another merch exercise for ya: Open Spotify, click search, and scroll to the bottom to a new category, called “Merch.” What’s your merch algo show who you are? Me: Sharron Van Etten. Mt. Joy. Cody Jinks. Spotify, the app that’s attuned (heh) to all your guilty pleasures and secret loves, drops a merch hub for artists. What might Spotify be up to? Prepping for those holiday sales. Last year in December, Spotify had the biggest week of artist merch sales in Spotify history. And hey, if you’d love to share your merch algo with us, let us know what you’re listening to - hit reply and give us your top three artists!

Drake Uses Bat Signal to Hand-Deliver Merch

Drake knows how to merch. His Drake Related shop is truly one of the coolest merch studios, and now, the eponymous rapper makes merch a white-glove experience. If you were at his show in Toronto and were lucky enough to scan his bat-signal QR code displayed on an outside wall before the show, you might have had $1,000 of merch hand-delivered to your door the next morning, courtesy of Drake Related.

The Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase Creates Viral Merch Opp

You know who is always open? 7-Eleven. And Cincinnati Bengal’s wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase. After setting a new record with 15 catches during a single game, Ja’Marr tweeted a pic of a 7-Eleven. The savvy marketers at 7-Eleven caught it  and, in a week, created a rad viral merch experience. Type isjamarropen.com into your browser and you’ll land on a simple page that says, “YES.” And then: Merch it. Taking you to the Always Open Ja’Marr Chase merch collection. How about you, backpacker? You open to creating a viral merch experience that fast? And speaking of football, did you catch (oy) our “Friday Night Lights” football collection drop?

Warning: Don’t Pay Interns in Merch

“So, I don’t have money to buy this car but I do have this t-shirt.” That zinger is from a funny-but-not-funny new campaign for Toronto’s Humber College created in partnership with agency Zulu Alpha Kilo. The campaign features merch (a mug and a t-shirt, respectively), as side characters in the real-life drama of unpaid internships. A really cool series that highlights how not to use merch.

skuconX: Get Your Tickets Before They’re Gone!

skucon, the conference that inspired a new generation of innovators, explorers, and dreamers in the branded merch industry, is back! It’s a team-electrifying experience where you can come together to be inspired, challenged, and pushed to dream bigger and reach higher. skuconX marks the 10th time the industry’s most innovative thinkers will gather together to connect, learn, and re-ignite alongside like-minded pros! (Read skucon's origin story here!) Join Joey Coleman (author of Never Lose a Customer Again) and a few of your closest merch friends as we celebrate our 10th journey together in the only way we know how: by imagining a bolder tomorrow! skucon always sells out quickly so grab your team tickets now!

☠️ Liquid Death is a marketing freak show and huge success. Here’s a breakdown of Liquid Death’s growth playbook (including, of course, killer merch).

🌊 Stay on top of this backpackers: Inclusion's Next Wave (a new trend report from Wunderman Thompson).

✖️ Since Twitter’s X’s demise, what are the top social media sites by monthly active users? Breakdown here.

👬 Our friends (and commonsku customer) Imprint Engine acquires software company bluebird cx.

♻️ Okay, friends. I know we deal in a lot of plastic in this business, and we’re making improvements, but, it’s worth a pause to look at what happens to humanity when it’s dumped on by 1 million plastic bottles (which is the total world production: 1 mil plastic bottles every minute).

📽️ Netflix turns up the volume on its merch business.

🙅 Don’t let your promo be an Eras Tour fail.

📚 Merch style goals: Emily Ratajkowski’s literary merch.

💤 Best explainer about Gen Z in the history of ever.