Walmart made a Rotisserie Chicken Purse, and priced it the same as the chicken. Betty Crocker turned its cake-mix box into a handbag, PBR's Halloween 12-pack doubles as a Jason mask, and Piggly Wiggly's retro pig bags sold out at the Wisconsin State Fair in hours. Same idea every time: the packaging people already recognize is the merch. No redesign, no sleek rebrand. For promo pros with CPG or food clients, this is the easiest pitch of the fall, because the design work is already done.
Doodles (the pastel NFT brand that became a merch brand) opened a Toy Factory. Upload a photo, a sketch or a sentence, and it comes back as a full-colour figurine in the Doodles style. Build-A-Bear, except the product is you. We're into it. Not for the tech, for the framing: a strong visual identity is a licence you can sell back to your own fans, one little guy at a time. If your client's logo can't survive being turned into a toy, that's a brand problem, not a toy problem.
Disney World's $4.99 character charms for resort mugs keep selling out, because they solve a real problem (which mug is mine). Then CAVA shrank its yellow takeout bag into a charm, Vaseline gated one behind a minimum spend in Singapore, and Dunkin' put one in its tennis collection. Charms are the new pins, and they clip onto everything you already sell. For promo pros: this is the add-on your drinkware and bag orders have been missing. Small SKU, big attach rate.
Tom Rector started Thumbprint in his living room in 2008 with a credit card and a dog. Today it's 91 people across Indianapolis, Orlando, Dallas and a brand-new Toronto entity, tracking toward $100 million in three years, and he still carries the company P&L in his backpack every day. On the latest skucast, ASI's 2026 Distributor Entrepreneur of the Year talks with Bobby about managing the work instead of the people, why the competitor that worries him is a 26-year-old with nothing to lose, and his prediction that procurement is headed for AI agents negotiating with AI agents. Plus the book that has him making three phone calls a day. Listen here →
Nine years of skucast, 350+ guests, one question away. Ask skucast is an AI built on every episode of the show, so you can ask the stuff you'd normally save for a mentor (growing your book, hiring your first ops person, what the most profitable distributors do differently) and get an answer pulled from what guests actually said, with the episode linked so you can hear it in context. Type it or say it out loud. The voice feature sounds so much like Bobby our own team did a double take. It's free, no signup, and it lives right on the page. Go ask it something →
🇨🇦 Canadian brands rallied around Lake Ontario with new merch, led by the "Canada Is Not For Sale" hat people. Reactive merch, northern edition.
⌚ Sam Altman had seven OpenAI-branded Swiss watches made on a $180,000 base, one for him, six for leadership. Corporate gifting has a new ceiling.
🍏 Poppi hid a new flavour under 500 peelable stickers on a NYC billboard and the public cleared it in hours. Stickers are merch.
🛒 Is it the death of the online store? Some think so, now that TikTok Shop lets people buy without ever visiting the brand site. Worth a think about who owns the customer.
🎾 Nike gave four US Open stars their own tees and only Alex Eala's sold out. Twice. Fandom beats ranking.
🏈 Disney, the NFL and Champion paired all 32 teams with a character. Raiders get Vader. Fans had notes.
🍩 Dunkin' turned Grand Central into a tennis court and dropped a HEAD co-branded collection, skort included.
🎤 Harry Styles opened a NYC pop-up for his 30-show MSG run. Residency merch is a two-month retail lease now.
🥤 Stanley x Caitlin Clark is dropping. Expect the sellout headline next issue.
🦸 Avengers: Endgame Encore comes with a light-up Iron Man helmet and a Nano Gauntlet popcorn bucket. The bucket economy reached re-releases.
⚽ Man City, PUMA and A$AP Rocky hid golden tickets inside jerseys. Steal this.
🛏️ Drake released an $80 body pillow with his face on it. Read the headline at your own risk.
🎙️ New: Ask skucast puts 350+ episodes of promo advice one question away. Ask it what you'd ask a mentor.