• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, January 4, 2023

It’s a new year, filled with new ideas.  Of course, some old ideas are all brand-new again!  For example, swag.  Swag is an acronym for “stuff we all get,” and it is one of the oldest  forms of media out there to work with.

I find that swag falls into three big buckets: 1) things that I like and will use; 2) things that are junk and will be immediately thrown away; and 3) things that are nostalgic, and I will pay for.  That third bucket is one that has grown over the years due to the increased commercialism of our culture and the desire for remembering the old days.

People love to wear T-shirts for throwback brands like MTV circa 1990.  These are not long-gone brands, but people love to look like they were fans during their heydays.  You also see shirts and clothing for brands like Dunkin’ and Fruit Loops, because they remind the wearer of things they love.

Some brands can cross the bridge from useful to wearable, but most cannot.  You need to establish an emotional tie with your audience, and if you do that well, you can make the jump.  Lifestyle brands are the easiest to make this transition, and in more recent years technology brands have done it from time to time.

The rest of the swag business is huge, but it needs a reset.  Too often, brands buy merchandise simply to get their brand “out there." They slap their brand on a pen, a notebook, a water bottle, or some other item with no regard for the lasting implications of that expense.  The out-of-pocket expense is not high, but the environmental impact is. These tchotchkes get tossed into the garbage and they stay there for many, many years.  Some of them stay there forever.  By spending your budgets on this junk, you are doing a disservice to your brand and the planet. It's time that brands hold one another accountable for this.

We should be focused only on buying things that a) reflect the brand, b) are truly useful and not likely to be thrown away immediately, and c) are sustainably sourced, so that if they do get tossed, they degrade in a timely fashion or can be recycled properly.

There are implications for these types of decisions.  You may have to spend a couple of extra dollars. You might not be able to afford things in the same volume as you did before, but most of what you were buying was getting tossed anyway. The best example of this is from when I lived in San Francisco, and I routinely would see homeless people wearing T-shirts from expired tech companies.  That was not money not well-spent by the brand, although it did help the folks who needed it most, eventually.

I would rather walk around a convention or conference and see high-quality swag that I was offered in exchange for a conversation or some true interest.  Even better yet, put up a sign that you did not buy junk this year and instead donated to an environmental cause.

At some of my companies, we did high-quality, pop-culture-oriented T-shirts that people would actually wear.  They cost more, but people loved them, and they were never thrown away.  I still have a few and I wear them often!  Plus, they were sourced from a sustainable brand.

Be more responsible with how you are spending your precious budgets -- and let’s work together to make swag better for everyone.