The Backpack: Issue #40

All our best, monthly news in one branded pack.

Friday, July 8

• Trend Alert: Meet the new star of the hit show "The Bear": merch

• Top Merch News: Heard about our brand new skummunity Forum?

• Vibe Check: The Verge’s “Next Generation of Apparel”

• Can't miss content: Saddle up for Cowboy Carter merch!

Meet the new star of the hit show "The Bear": Merch

How’s this for a new one? A fictitious series creates a fictitious business which then creates a real-life merch campaign to sell through a major retailer. As reported by Variety, “Matter of Fak Supply Company” is the new business making its debut in “The Bear” this season with a merch drop through J. Crew. Blending retail fashion with branded merch is a hot trend. Such as the new Kate Spade summer collection with Heinz that just dropped which includes loafers, tote, and a crossbody. While the Spade brand collection might feel a little too camp, “The Bear” collab is spot-on with a killer trucker cap and canvas work jacket. Which collection do you love, backpacker? Fak Supply or Heinz?

Will the AI design uproar over Baggu affect merch?

Is it really, “disgusting” and “horrendous” to use AI for product design? Baggu produced a horse-shaped bag collab with Collina Strada and used AI (Midjourney) to mix two prints together to come up with a final design, “then all hell broke loose.” Some people hated the fact that Baggu used AI; others loved it. Does this represent a new threshold for product design? What do you think backpacker? Are you pro-AI design or anti? Me? I’m buying a horsey bag.

Planet Money’s Indicator podcast talks merch

Planet Money’s Indicator podcast talks about “the business of merch” and launches a new merch shop, plus, they create something pretty cool that we talk about a lot in our 5 Big Trends workshop: fan-fueled merch. The Indicator creates exclusive merch only for subscribers and drops a special URL in their subscriber-only pod, a trend we’re seeing a massive uptick in as brands fight for loyalty. 

Heard about our brand new skummunity Forum?

Need new ideas? Want to learn what the best in the promo biz know? We’re excited to unveil our brand new skummunity Forum! On June 27th we held a webinar but if you missed it, we got you: you can check out the recording with commonsku Prof Marcella De Ocampo, here! 

Grid view in presentations and shops

We're always working to make things beautiful and simple for ya: You can now use the grid view to easily drag and drop your products to arrange in your preferred order! commonsku's new Grid view simplifies item layout, so you can effortlessly categorize and arrange your product offerings for presos and shops!

Turn your big vision into real strategy

Todd Mawyer is the President and CEO of TK Promotions, a commonsku distributor customer, who, over the past few years, has completely recalibrated his team and his leadership, putting growth theory into practice. Join us as we chat with Todd about his 1-year and 5-year plan!

Meet The Verge’s “Next Generation of Apparel”

The Verge makes a merch come back with a new merch shop and it’s genius. Why? Only five items (for now) but tastefully crafted and curated. The lesson here is, less is more. Meet Verge’s “Next Generation of Apparel”. The Verge even names their black and white collection mono (as in monogram, not infection) 🤓which is a smart way to distinguish a collection (even though it’s really just black and white t-shirts). And kudos to Team Verge for including this branded Apple watch band. But the real winner? Prob this simple and stylish hoodie.

Can we talk about the Olympic mascot plush?

Is there a push out there to create the strangest mascot? Cause France’s “Olympic Phryge” might be winning. It might even beat London and Athens. Is it a croissant? A marshmallowy Peeps? It’s actually a French Phrygian cap (according to this real-life hat historian). Every Olympic host city has a mascot, here’s a really cool page that shows them all from each past host country. But major cred to France for creating an inclusive mascot!

😎 This Maxine jacket from A24 is LEGIT with corduroy interior and chain stitch embroidery, only $98 bucks?

🍔 Is Sonic's new shop the coolest merch store ever? Zoom in on that corn dog t-shirt.  And not to be out-fried by Chick-fil-a 😜 that fry fanny pack. BTW: We think the Sonic team might have taken some inspo from Drake’s shop.

🎥 Did you know we have a super-rich backlog of on-demand webinars in our library? Great place to send new colleagues (or seasoned pros) to amp their commonsku know-how!

🏙️ Yet another city that launched a merch collection and it’s not bad for a municipality, Ya der hey, Milwaukee!

😍 Here’s another new fashionable merch term for ya backpacker, merch-core.

🃏 Cowboy Carter merch is rad and on-brand. Ashtray. Playing cards. Cowboy hat.

🏒 Who knew the making of a hockey jersey could be so heartwarming?

🐒 Awwww. Natural Habitat Shorts, the beloved and bizarre animated YouTube hit with 3MM subscribers, drops a shop and it’s cute as hell.

☀️ Chick-fil-A's summer merch keeps gettin' hotter. Waffle fry pool float? Yes, please. Waffle fry glasses? Hell, yaz. Giant chicken sandwich towel? Ummm, m-a-y-b-e.