Merch as Effec(tive?)tive Offline Marketing – Піарся Survey. Part 5

For those who aren't deep in the weeds, merch is something associated with the New Year, when some top affiliate marketer or niche influencer posts Stories full of goodies from partners. No point in being coy — gift bundles are one of the main pillars of merch marketing, and we at Piarcia know our way around them pretty well. But today we're breaking down the corporate gifting phenomenon itself — as people who are in the know… deeply.

The data in this analysis was made more objective thanks to a collaboration with Palai Media and our large-scale survey. We asked our exceptional audience a series of questions about niche media, and took the opportunity to get their thoughts on physical branded merchandise and gadgets — the whole spectrum of which hides behind the concise term merch.

Why Merch Still Works

It became part of marketing long before affiliate conferences turned into their own competitive sport. At its core, it's essentially souvenirs: t-shirts, hoodies, pens, notebooks, stickers — things that help a brand stay visible after an event. But the mechanics have always run deeper than that.

This is Piarcia merch, hehe — and yes, the buckwheat is Piarcia merch too

People love gifts, love feeling special, love physical things that create an emotional connection to something. That's exactly what merch as a phenomenon is built on. And judging by our survey, the trend is only gaining momentum — demand for quality freebies keeps climbing.

Conferences have become the perfect environment for merch to evolve. In a space where dozens of brands are simultaneously competing for attention, banners and "best conditions for partners" have long stopped being enough. That's why merch has transformed from an added bonus into almost its own genre of marketing. A great booth today isn't just about design or the sales team — it's about how well a brand understands its audience: what people actually want to take home, what will be useful, and what will end up in the trash just to free up their hands.

And here's the key thing to understand: merch stopped being just a souvenir or a new format of a flyer a long time ago — it directly influences brand perception. A quality item automatically transfers part of its positive experience onto the company that gifted it. That's exactly why the concept of "good merch" sticks so easily to the concept of "good brand." And in an industry where everything runs on trust, reputation, and long-term relationships, this is no longer a question of souvenirs — it's a question of how a company is perceived and how loyal people are to it.

It's time to finally abandon the "just have something" mindset, because that approach will get exactly the reaction it deserves. Today, merch is a full-fledged part of branding, and random decisions here work just as poorly as guesswork in content or design. People perceive merch as an extension of a brand — its taste, its attitude toward the audience, and its attention to detail. That's why it can work both for positive associations and against them. This tool should be treated as yet another, more interactive touchpoint between a person and a brand.

Merch as a Physical Touchpoint with the Brand

In digital marketing, most brand interactions are deeply ephemeral: banners, Stories, Telegram posts, landing pages, email campaigns — all of it is just audiovisual content on a screen. A person sees it on a screen and forgets it just as quickly. Merch works differently — it moves the brand into physical space. That's why even a simple hoodie or a bottle of liqueur can create a far stronger emotional connection than a dozen ad integrations.

This is, by the way, another Piarcia case: a bottle of Spanish wine from a Catalan winery that we personally traveled to select. The bottle was branded in a Spanish style for a conference in Barcelona and personalized for each influencer who received it as a gift.

A simple psychological association works well here: if an item is comfortable, high-quality, and useful — the brain automatically transfers part of that impression onto the brand itself. It's similar to premium product packaging: technically it doesn't change the product, but it strongly influences how we perceive it. That's why quality merch often becomes a kind of "proof" that a company knows how to work with details, understands its audience, and doesn't cut corners on user experience.

The most interesting part is that good merch keeps working even after the conference. A hoodie someone wears to a coworking space, a tote bag they take to the grocery store, stickers on a laptop. All of these things gradually embed the brand into the everyday context of someone's life. This is a story about familiarity and recognition built through regular presence alongside a person — the same reason Coca-Cola spends billions on outdoor advertising in Times Square.

How Merch Drives Brand Recognition

There's a simple pattern in marketing: the more often a person encounters a brand in everyday life, the more familiar and "safe" it feels to them. That's exactly why merch works so well for brand recognition. When a brand stops existing only in a Telegram channel or on a conference booth and literally starts living alongside a person — in the form of a hoodie, a tote bag, or even a basic mug — it becomes far more firmly embedded in memory. The data shows it clearly: the physical presence of an item automatically extends the brand's presence in the user's mind.

From a marketing perspective, the most valuable thing about merch isn't even that. Good merch turns a person into a brand carrier… and a voluntary one at that. The moment someone puts on a branded item or posts it in their Stories, they effectively become part of the company's marketing communication themselves — and a completely different mechanism kicks in: recommendation through presence. There's a big difference between seeing a brand's ad and seeing it in the context of a real person's life. That's why the stats on Stories and photos featuring merch are so telling: people are far more willing to share things that genuinely look good even outside a work context.

From this angle, merch is a way to quietly embed a brand into the social environment. It doesn't work through direct sales — it works through regular reminders and the accumulation of associations. A person sees a logo at a coworking space, at a conference, in a colleague's Stories, or on someone's laptop, and the brand gradually stops being "one of many." That's how passive brand recognition is built — through dozens of small cameos in the right context.

When the User Becomes a Brand Carrier

Marketing has long had models that describe a person's journey from first contact with a brand to genuine loyalty. The most well-known is the classic Brand Loyalty Funnel, but in the context of merch, let's simplify it to this scale:

The problem is that moving between these levels usually comes at a cost: ads, giveaways, content, integrations, retargeting. Meanwhile, merch acts as a shortcut between "awareness" and "affinity" — and sometimes jumps a person straight to "engagement." All because instead of yet another ad touchpoint, the brand creates a physical experience: an item a person takes home, uses, and integrates into their daily life.

And that's where things get really interesting: when someone puts on a branded hoodie, sticks a sticker on their laptop, or posts Stories featuring merch, they're no longer just "in contact" with the brand — they're actively helping it spread. They essentially become a brand carrier themselves. And compared to most classic marketing tools, this is one of the cheapest ways to achieve a level of loyalty without direct sales or aggressive advertising.

What Doesn't End Up in the Trash

The first thing worth doing when talking about good merch is honestly crossing all the junk off the list. Helium balloons, flyers, brochures, cheap pens, plastic trinkets, and everything else a person throws away before they even reach the hotel. At one point this worked simply because "something branded" was already enough of a touchpoint with a company. Today, audiences are so oversaturated with advertising that every item automatically goes through an internal screening process.

Times have changed, and so has the approach to merch. Slapping a logo on a mug is no longer enough — you need to understand your audience's lifestyle, interests, and habits. Good merch fits naturally into a person's life and doesn't look like an ad banner that accidentally became a physical object. The categories that work best today are:

• Gadgets — power banks, chargers, tech accessories, or compact devices like speakers. Things people actually use every day.
• Unique items — rare figurines, limited drops, collectibles, meme-worthy pieces that people want to keep at least for the fun of it.
• Lifestyle merch — tote bags, water bottles, travel accessories, work or everyday items that don't look like a trade show souvenir.
• Apparel — a category of its own that has long become something far greater than just a logo t-shirt.

This merch was created by Piarcia for Alpha Affiliates as an annual collection

Apparel best illustrates how merch has evolved into an element of status and self-expression. Young audiences love fashion, love signaling belonging to a certain lifestyle, and love great-looking clothes — as if it's not an affiliate conference but Paris Fashion Week. That's why quality apparel today works almost like a brand collaboration with streetwear culture. Sometimes a few pairs of custom sneakers or a genuinely stylish hoodie for top media buyers generates more organic reach through Stories than an entire ad campaign. And we have receipts.

In the end, it all comes down to a simple pattern: good merch is impossible to create without understanding your audience. People can immediately tell when a brand is just "checking the KPI box on souvenirs," and they notice just as quickly when something was genuinely made for them. So the key to merch that doesn't end up in the trash isn't just budget — and certainly not the size of the logo — it's understanding what your audience's life looks like and what they'll actually want to take home with them.

Practicality > Fun

Today, good merch wins not because it's "funny" or "creative," but because it finds a place in someone's real life. The era of display cabinets full of little souvenirs is over — now even a fridge magnet has to pass a two-stage interview. People are simply tired of accumulating clutter, and this is especially noticeable among younger audiences, where minimalism and functionality have long been part of the lifestyle. If it used to be enough to make something fun, now you have to earn your spot on the shelf.

New Year merch pack gift for partners, created by Piarcia for Growe Partners

That's why two categories of merch perform best: gadgets and collectible items. The former win on practicality — a good power bank will always find a use, a smart calendar will claim its spot on the desk, and a collectible anime figure will draw attention, after which the name of the brand that gifted it will inevitably come up at least once.

Limited drops from popular brands, meme-worthy items (like the Floppa cat), designer objects, or simply very well-made things give a person at least one obvious reason to keep them. And that's critical: good merch shouldn't beg "don't throw me away" — it should independently create the desire to take it home before it's even in someone's hands.