The Backpack: Issue #58

“Loot boxes” are the new merch kits

Titmouse is an animation studio with over 700 creators that started out as a t-shirt company. What’s cool is … everything about them: their merch store “titmouse stuff”, their designs (of course) like this Black Dynamite tee, and this Black Dynamite tee, but what’s really rad? They just launched a subscription service so that fans could receive a “monthly loot box” (great term for a merch kit, a term from Anima Superhero) which includes a secret code to watch exclusive toons. And their landing page for it is something you just have to experience. It’s weird, quirky, fun, exclusive, and a brilliant way to create superfans. It’s a cartoon delivery service with a side of merch.

BeautyMatter asks Beauty Brands: “Have we reached ‘peak hoodie?”

From Karen Fielding, Chief Strategy Officer, General Idea Agency, “Well-done merch situates the brand in the zone of culture it wants to play in and ideally makes it visible to new potential customers by gaining social traction through its entertainment factor,” [but] “there is limited consumer appetite for more hoodies with logos—they’re the tote bags of our era … But if a brand has a genuinely original idea that reflects an understanding of its audience, there is still a clear opportunity to cut through in culture.” As a merch pro, the article is well-worth your time and cites some of the best beauty brands doing merch today: Merit, Rhode, Jeffree Star, and more. Check it here.

An “unusual marketing approach for a pharma company”

AdWeek writes about pharmaceutical company Julie and their controversial merch drop. Who’s Julie? “Julie’s first product, a morning-after pill, is now available in more than 18,000 U.S. retail locations, including Target, Walmart, and CVS. Last year it expanded its product range with a cold sore medication.” The drop included a promotion by Ciara Miller and all proceeds from this merch campaign go to support health organizations. And the merch? Floaties, cropped tees, and “trucked up hat.”

You can now bulk update those margins in commonsku!

No more adjusting margins for each product in your project, now, with a click, you can update the margin on all products at once! A highly requested feature that our dev team delivered on. How to use it? Here’s one small pro-tip: Let’s say your average margins are 40%, but did you know that if you increased your margins on all projects by just 1% you’re banking a lot more profit at year-end? There’s lots of reason to use bulk margin but we’re proud to bring you this one because we not only want you to grow sales, we want you to enjoy profit! Now, go boost that margin!

Only 10 seats left for skucamp, grab yours before its gone!

Want to learn how to craft an unforgettable customer experience? How about navigating economic volatility? How about tariffs? At skucamp, we’re tackling all the critical topics plus insights on ethical sourcing, raising leaders in your biz, developing an agency mindset, fashion-forward merch, and innovative lead-gen tactics. And virtually all of it is peer-led! Only 10 seats left, grab your spot!

Mastering client complexity through mergers

Mergers and acquisitions on the distributor side of the business have been hot over the past year and one company who has been making some amazing acquisitions is Premier Press. Premier Press is a privately held, women-owned company. They're carbon-neutral, wind-powered, and a Sustainable Green Printing Partnership-certified company. Their expertise lies in leveraging data, commercial offset and digital printing, packing, kitting, warehousing, mailing, and distribution services, and with all of these services onsite. On the skucast, we chatted with Laura Mazy, Director of Marketing at Premier, and Kate Ivory, Director of Promotional Merchandise at Premier, tune in to hear Laura and Kate talk about how an ever-increasingly complex client led to their merger.

Tattoo artists are now merch designers

We’ve seen this trend pop up a few times lately: brands who partner with famous tattoo artists for merch. Like this stunning collab with XGALX and Dr. Woo, the LA tattoo artist with 1.7M followers 😳 plus a design assist from Kazuki Kuraishi. It’s a stunning collection of merch including these (trending) silk scarves, tattoo mesh top (the beige one’s gorgeous) and this wolf design jersey. Maximalism is trending so this whole collection is worth browsing for some design inspo. (Our fave might be this tee). High art collectible merch, indeed.

Who owns your creative if you built it with AI?

A bit of a storm brewing over creativity + AI: The recent blowup involves OpenAI’s 4o Image Generation with folks taking to it to “Studio Ghiblify-ing” images of their friends and family and it begs the question: Where does creativity come from and who owns it? Kyla Scanlon, economic commentator and Gen Z creator (and also keynote speaker at skucamp coming up in Scottsdale in the Fall), has a great breakdown of the artistic ownership challenge here. What about you backpacker? How are you using AI + images in your campaigns with clients? Got a story you want to share? We’d love to hear it, hit that reply!

Duke is not happy about its merch in White Lotus

White Lotus character Timothy Ratliff wore a Duke t-shirt in season three and Duke is not happy about it, “The White Lotus not only uses our brand without permission, but in our view uses it on imagery that is troubling, does not reflect our values or who we are, and simply goes too far.” Meanwhile, Ratliff’s wife Victoria is helping GAP make a comeback and just dropped classic merch with legends, but honestly—- we’re just here for the Party Girl Parker Posey renaissance. Pass the Lorazepam.

👕 One of the world’s largest ad agencies, Wieden + Kennedy hosts cool experiences in their W+K Atrium like this art project featuring 32 original t-shirts by designer Laney Punarate.

😜 Adorable: Peanuts and Starbucks drop: (Cup of) Joe merch.

🛍️ Fan’s busting out Aldi’s (merch) aisle of shame > you gotta see this tote.

👔 Elvis-inspired Trump merch. Thank you…thank you very much.

📦 Did you know there’s a global “packaging design” competition that has received more than 2,000 entries from 62 countries? Go submit your cool kitting project, backpacker!

😍 In case you missed it, Dodgers’ Tokyo Series merch set records with over $40 million in merch sales.

😎 FKA Twigs proving that a night on the town only requires old merch.

🙈 Just announced: Bobby Hundreds, the guy who literally wrote the book This is Not a T-Shirt, closed his eponymous streetwear store The Hundreds to become Disney’s Vice President of Creative for consumer merch.

🏒 Whoever is doing the merch for hockey team the Los Angeles Kings can’t miss, they just dropped a LA Kings + 2Pac exclusive merch collection plus limited edition vinyl. How Do U Want It?

🏢 “The Office” turns 20 and Michael, Jim, Pam, and Dwight are now just figments of our imagination but it’s poetically ironic that the 20th anniversary merch is kinda lame.

🐈 Okay, give it up to Puma for dropping this rad as hell collab with Harry Potter —yes, Harry Potter, see it before you mock it— it’s killer. But they also dropped this Ferrari merch to scathing reviews. On the whole, Puma’s remergence its pretty cool to watch.

👻 Bob Dylan, messing with fans by selling a shirt for a tour that never happened is peak mystery-Dylan.

⚽ PricePicks, the fantasy sports co, drops a collab with Atlanta artist and muralist Paperfrank.

🎨 Are you tapping into the color narratives trend? We just hosted a webinar with Numo’s Chief Creative Officer Sarah Aguinaga and one of the trends she talked about was “color narratives,” using color to add depth and build a story. A great example of this is how Arc’teryx partnered with Japanese brand Beams.

🔥 10 seats left for skucamp. One’s yours. Grab it here.