The state of merch in 2026
Season 11, Issue 1: How to get sick merch and link it to revenue
📬 In this issue:
How to rethink merch as strategic
A 2026 inspo library
Updated guidelines for what makes merch “good”!
Bonus: Merch people you should follow!
Dear Mehketeer, welcome to Season 11!
I wrote about merch, one time, three seasons ago and people still bring it up to me as what they know me for (I love this, don’t stop doing it.) In 2025 I saw the B2B merch game step up significantly (thanks to me, I’ll take the credit) and it got my brain gears turning enough for a whole new issue on merch.
Here’s the original:
In it, I outlayed my rules for what makes merch “good”. Today’s issue is more about when, where, and how to use (good) merch.
B2B merch falls into a couple of categories:
T-shirt/hoodie/puffer jacket with giant logo, making the wearer a walking billboard
“We have to have something so we made water bottles, notebooks, pens, and tote bags” merch
“If you know, you know” subtle merch for die hard fans and power users
Somewhere in between 2 and 3 < this is where this Mehdeeka issue focuses
I want to call back to yet another old Mehdeeka issue where I reviewed lessons from Bob Iger’s Ride of a Lifetime book. In it, he talks about learning a lesson from someone who consulted for political campaigns.
The TL;DR is you have three audiences in politics. The people who are already going to vote for you, the people who absolutely will never vote for you, and people who haven’t decided who they’re going to vote for yet. Focus your energy on the third group. You’ve already won the first, and you’re wasting your time on the second.
Merch can and should be strategically designed for this third audience.
Note: Yes, there’s a time and a place for the first audience, such as rewarding loyalty, growing community, etc., that’s not today’s topic.
Side note on bad merch: Just a week or two ago, Mecca released a bonus gift for their most loyal shoppers as a “reward” for collecting all of the rewards available throughout the year. It ended up being an oversized plastic tote bag with Mecca’s logo on it. People were commenting “i will be super disappointed if it's an empty tote” after the sneak peek social media posts about the reward, and then it ended up being badly received enough that Mecca put out a statement apologising.
How to use merch strategically
Merch, like all marketing activities, needs to be aligned to a desired outcome. It’s got to be measureable, and preferrably tied to cold, hard revenue.
You can run A/B tests on the following ideas with cohorts who get this strategic merch and cohorts who don’t, then see final conversion rates and contract values on them to really demonstrate value.
I’d also recommend making merch in small quantities for highly specific reasons. You don’t want a bunch of loose merch hanging around your office, that’s literally wasted spend!
Merch for ABM
When you’re doing a high-touch ABM campaign, your merch doesn’t really need to be merch, it just needs to be memorable that it came from you. Think about some of the best gifts you’ve received, it’s very likely you remember the gift giver.
ABM is all about building relationships, and a nice gift of any kind, with a very clear “from” goes a long way. What doesn’t go a long way is yet another T-shirt that goes straight to the pyjamas pile, stickers that are so specific to your brand that no one sticks them on anything, or a waterbottle where the talking point is “isn’t the price of this waterbottle outrageous?!” and not the fact that you were the source of it.
Consider seasonal gifts to have always relevant and timely reasons for reaching out, for example, mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival, artisinal chocolate for Easter, high-end Christmas decorations, blankets in Winter, picnic games in Summer, etc.
Buying a high end gift and wrapping it in a custom label or box is still super impactful, leaves a positive impression, and it could work out cheaper than getting actually customised merch.
Side note: I started a content series on LinkedIn that notifies you of campaign ideas like these, three months in advance so you have time to plan them out. Connect with me!
Example 1: Meltwater had individual cakes customised to target brands which they hand delivered.
When I reached out to the Meltwater team to ask more about this campaign… they sent me a 13 page strategy deck just for this one campaign. Now that’s preparation. It covered, the goals, how they were going to measure it, what stage of the funnel it was mapped against, the digital assets of the campaign mapped out, an A/B test that was run within the campaign, and early results.
Additionally, the Meltwater team let me know the cakes (so far!!) have a 66%+ conversion rate. In comparison, the emails got a 1% demo request rate. Genuinely incredible.
Example 2: Freckle had pickleball sets sent out and they’re running a pickleball event to go with it! (Bonus from the post: the box included “A custom QR code linking to a pre-recorded Loom of a Freckle table we built specifically for their use case” — a sweet way to tie this back to their product!)
Update: Freckle’s founder said this drove $600k (USD) in pipeline in this LinkedIn post.
Merch in lieu of earned media
Using merch as the catalyst for organic user-generated content can rival the best PR plan. If your audience is not easily targeted, for example they don’t have a clear industry publication to target, or they mostly congregate in closed communities (e.g. Slacks, Discords, dark social) then this might be the merch campaign for you.
This works best if it’s in conjunction with a digital campaign. Use your digital campaign as the destination to drive people to after they’ve seen the photos of your merch. Have merch sent to people in your target audience — they don’t have to be huge, influential people. In fact, people with smaller social accounts are more likely to be flattered to get anything at all and post it, rather than competing with the hundred other brands trying to get a giant influencer’s attention.
Example 1: Qwilr designed a digital campaign around a retro-inspired game, and then mailed influential LinkedIn users (and their target audience) a 3D printed, customised game cartridge. The nostalgia level had this all over my LinkedIn for weeks, and Brendan Connaughton was kind enough to let me know that this was pretty cheap and came out to just a few dollars per cartridge!
Jess Tassell, CMO of Qwilr, provided this insight into the campaign:
We set out to capture the feeling of Saturday morning Nintendo sessions as a kid. That sense of excitement, anticipation and pure fun - and translate it into a physical experience that felt connected to the digital game itself. Because of that, the unboxing moment mattered just as much as the merch inside. Every detail was intentional and debated: a custom-sized box so the cartridge didn’t rattle, handwritten names penned to each note, and Qwilr-purple, pixel-style artwork that that reinforced the retro theme of Qwilr Quest.
The goal was to create such a positive, share-worthy experience that recipients would post about the campaign on LinkedIn, driving virality while building long-term brand affinity with each recipient.
Example 2: Clay sent physical prints of their 2025 wrapped summaries to the top 1% of users. Posted by an account with just 1,500 followers, this got almost 300 likes on LinkedIn (which, is actually really impressive because LinkedIn reach is awful right now.)
This second example also shows how your strategy for enaging power users with merch can crossover with merch for swing voters!
Interactive merch
I’ve talked before about how when someone contributes to something, they are more bought in to that thing being successful. Merch is the same!
If your merch is 99% finished, and you let the customer or prospect choose the final 1% to finish it off, they’re going to be more invested in carrying it around, using it, and showing it to people.
What’s great about this is you can tie the customisation process to “fill in this form so we can contact you to let you know it’s ready to be picked up” which is waaayyyyy more convincing a way to collect emails and build out your nurture funnel.
Here’s some examples:
Honeycomb had water bottles and a laser engraving machine at Generate Summit, you could choose up to eight characters to engrace (honestly, so happy Mehdeeka is exactly eight characters)
At the Braze City x City event series they had blank tote bags and a selection of iron on patches. Simply pick the patches you want and they’ll iron it on for you, wherever you want it. I arrived later in the day and a lot of the patches were already gone!
At a legal conference, InfoTrack had custom gold foiling on black leather notebooks. Simply choose your initials and give them your email and they’d let you know when it was stamped on!
At the same legal conference, there was also a stand where they were custom embroidering cowboy hats. I spoke to the team (so sorry, I’ve forgotten which brand it was) and they said they announced the embroidery before the conference and had a waitlist of merch orders before the conference even opened! The hats were $200 each in value so it was honestly a wild piece of merch that although cool, is very gimmicky and I don’t see people actually wearing it (or remembering who it’s from…)
Definitely consider announcing what merch you’re going to have at an event booth before the event if you’re investing in it!
Merch people at the top of their game
There’s two people (well, one is a company) I definitely wanted to include in this 2026 merch guide.
The first is Michael (Mikey) Gayed from Good Ideas Studio, who, when I met him, gave me a bic lighter with his contact details on it. No business cards around these parts, just merch that sticks in your brain. His reply to my request for comment was as follows (using an example of getting Good Ideas Studio to create a design for you):
The biggest tip I give my clients around this is how to make the money invested in it go as far as possible. So if we do a sick design for you, you don't have to just use it for a shirt. You can pull it apart for tote bags, mugs, hats - whatever you can think of Even social media posts and ad creative. So you aren't just spending $2,500 for a t-shirt, you investing it into a sick graphic that can be used in multiple areas of the business. It is also a great brand exercise, can use it to tell a story and be a talking point at networking events. Especially for tech companies or industries where they have interesting products. Somehow communicate that through the merch design and it will be a conversation starter with people - the best way to network!
Using your own merch as distinctive assets in your ads and content is such a good idea, and I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a conversation about multi-purposing merch to that extent.
Secondly, I already mentioned Honeycomb above, they really impressed me with their focus on interactive merch. Think on-site embossing, engraving, and heat transfers. One of their blogs refers to this as “on-site gifting” which is a nice repositioning of it — it’s not merch, it’s a customised gift!
I asked them about their approach to merch and they sent this through:
The most effective merchandise is purposeful, practical and built to fit seamlessly into everyday life. Think items people reach for on their commute, at their desk or during unpredictable Aussie weather. The biggest 2026 merch trends are all about smart basics that look good, pack well and solve real problems, from weather-ready kits and practical tech to sustainable, everyday pieces that earn repeat use, not landfill time. When merch solves a real problem, it doesn’t feel like a giveaway, it feels like a win. And that’s where true brand impact lives.
That impact grows even stronger when the product becomes part of an experience. Whether it’s through event interactions, QR-led campaigns or live personalisation, activations turn merch into something people remember and talk about. And finally, never underestimate the power of personalisation. A name, initial or tailored detail instantly increases perceived value, emotional connection and long-term keep-rates. Smart merch isn’t about volume. It’s about memorability.
So, step 1: merch people want, step 2: make it an experience!
Just some old-fashioned good merch examples!
We’re gonna go left to right:
An actually very powerful fan (with an ice setting and USB C charging!) included in the VIP pack for TWICE’s This is For tour. Not only high quality product, but suitable for the environment — concerts get hot!
Generate tote bag. I know I said totes are overdone, but I actually get compliments on this one from strangers when I’m out, so if you can find a tote design that’s not just a standard one, go for it. Particularly on this one, the strap that can be adjusted for cross-body, and the dual water bottle pockets on the ends are what people compliment most.
Braze magnets, keyring, and Signal badges. I recognise these are really small, but they’re great examples of knick knacks made for specific events (in this case, Sydney based events, hence the Opera House design on the Signal badge, and the Braze magnet is a Vegemite jar design — these aren’t brand assets at all, but they’ll make people who love the Opera House and Vegemite pick them up! Great idea if your brand doesn’t have die hard fans yet.)
InfoTrack’s black leather notebook with gold foil custom initials.
Not visible on the bottle, but this is merch from Fareye, and the bottle is meant for tea, it has a strainer, is insulated, and you can tap the lid to get a temperature read of the liquid inside.
My Mehdeeka laser engraved bottle, courtesy of Honeycomb.
Moomin cork coasters! These came in a flat piece of cork, where you punched them out and assembled the stand from that as well. I love these. I want to make Mehdeeka ones, please ask all your merch contacts if they can make this and when they say yes, email me.
Goobne fan, this one is interesting! Goobne is an oven-baked chicken brand in Korea (which positions itself as the healthy alternative to Korean fried chicken) and in their flagship store they had a crafty table with these blank plastic fans (great for when it’s hot in summer) and a huge variety of stickers so you could decorate it, totally free to just sit there and design yourself a little fan. Heaps of fun, a memorable souvenir, and great merch!
Bronwyn Cook also has an amazing compilation list of merch ideas on her LinkedIn! One I’d like to add… Hydralite tablets. I’m getting older, I appreciate electrolytes these days, especially after a big conference day!
*Adding the below after this newsletter was already finished because it just came out. This merch line (available for purchase) from Stake hits the right balance of IYKYK and subtle branding for die-hard fans:
2026 merch ins and outs
In: Merch with intention!
Out: Lazy merch produced in a rush without a desired outcome!!!
Tell me what the best merch you’ve ever gotten was in the comments, I’d love to hear!
And, great to see you again (or welcome if you’re a new Mehketeer! Hope you like it around here.)I honestly hope you feel like there’s a jump in quality and how prepared I am for the issues this upcoming season, so let me know if you enjoy them! Off the back of my goal setting issue last year I really am trying to focus on the ‘mundanity of excellence’ with the details, even if they’re a lot more effort for what might seem on the surface like not much extra.
Stay fresh, stay poppin’,
Kayla
I love good merch and hate bad merch and I don't think I'm alone in hating wasted spend on bad merch. One thing I've learned is that stickering off-the-shelf goods to customise them for your brand lasts maybe a year, sometimes less — most stickers will start to pick up scratches and fade (which we don't want) very quickly if your merch is in regular use (which we want). If at all possible, use laser engraving. If laser engraving is not possible, consider supergluing a 2D printed logo to merch items.
rather than messaging you this I will comment to say that I was actually extremely impressed with how Good At Merch organisations with Mardi Gras Fair Day stalls have gotten over the last decade - I feel like when I was an undergrad it was all stress balls and ugly pens? This year I got three (3) carabiners without really trying, every second stall had mini sunscreens with their logo on, or lip balm, or fans, or glasses cleaners (also huge this year, I think I got offered about five?), roll-up water bottles, sunglasses... very interesting to reflect on!