 love them. I’ve got an entire drawer dedicated to the obsession. One drawer. Multiple layers. We’re talking stratum. I just counted: just shy of 

 are crammed in there. Sometimes I can’t even shut the dang thing. It drives my wife nuts. If she ever leaves me, it’ll be over my inability to Marie Kondo this cotton catastrophe into something manageable.

I’ve always been a sucker for merch — shirts, hats, toys, pins, you name it. I still remember zooming around the neighborhood in my iron-on Flash Gordon tee and thinking I was the coolest thing this side of Planet Mongo. Or the time I was supposed to be learning the multiplication tables but instead practiced drawing my Admiral Ackbar shirt 

But my love for merch —  specifically wearable merch — came with my obsession with 

 and a shirt I wore until it literally fell off me. My mom clipped proofs-of-purchases for months and then mailed them off just so tiny me could broadcast to the world: 

People needed to know. I was four, but I had a message, and that message was printed in bold across my chest.

I bring all of this up because that’s what merch is all about, isn’t it? Broadcasting to the world what 

Ownable merch is magic. It’s how you smuggle a brand away from itself and into your real life. It takes all that big, abstract stuff, like values, stories, vibes, and shrinks it down into something you can wear, hold, stick on your laptop, or pull over your head when you need a little confidence boost. Suddenly, it’s not just a logo anymore. It’s 

(Or your overflowing drawer of Godzilla tee's ;)

That kind of physical connection? It’s sticky. It keeps the brand close, even when you're nowhere near it.

Here are 5 quick reasons you shouldn’t sleep on ownable merch:

, already the queen of cool-girl skincare, dropped a soft pink hoodie—and the internet lost it. Not a product. Not a serum. A sweatshirt. But not just any sweatshirt: this thing became a uniform. A badge. A wearable wink that said, “Yeah, I get it.” GlossiWEAR turned their fans into walking billboards, and even people who’d never tried the products wanted in. 

Suddenly, the brand wasn’t just on your shelf; it was on everybody's back.

Great merch isn’t just something you wear; it’s a conversation starter. 

 nailed this by turning their chaos-loving vibe into merch people had to have — shirts, skate decks, even air fresheners. Fans didn’t just drink the water; they wore the brand. And in doing so, they helped it explode across subcultures and social feeds without a dollar of traditional advertising.

It creates new revenue or loyalty streams.

Merch isn’t just a brand booster. It can 

 the brand. Drop it with intention (or scarcity), and it becomes a product line, a loyalty play, even a lifestyle. 

 gets this. Their hats, shirts, and patches aren’t just extras; they sell out, rack up revenue, and let fans live the rugged identity. 

You're not just buying a cooler... you’re buying into the whole damn ethos.

Wearing merch can feel like a secret handshake. It’s also a quiet “me too” for people who get it. It builds community without saying a word. 

 understood this early on. Their patches and tags weren’t just branding; they were badges of belief. Sustainability, adventure, activism… all stitched into gear worn with pride. 

It wasn’t just apparel. It was alignment.

Don’t sleep on the team. Ownable merch builds internal pride just as much as external buzz. A good shirt makes people feel like part of something bigger. 

 nailed this with quirky, high-quality merch that employees actually wanted to wear. It reinforced their creative, offbeat culture and made a B2B brand feel surprisingly human.

At VIA Studio, we’re merch people. Always have been. We know the power of a good tee, and we’ve seen it work. When 

 rebranded, a simple shirt helped rally the internal team. From there, we rolled out designs for hats, magnets, bottles, bags, and — naturally — t-shirts for both big and little nature lovers. Today, the faithful foresters are out there repping local art and conservation with pride. Branded swag never looked so mission-driven.

. Tees, hoodies, pins, stickers… we did it all. We’ve seen firsthand what good merch can do: their sales continue to climb every year, and the stuff isn’t just worn in October. Folks rock it 

. I’ve seen it at the grocery store in June. I’ve worn it in 

. Great merch doesn’t go back in the box after Spooky Season. It becomes part of the rotation.

So yeah, we believe in merch. The kind you want to wear because it 

 something. It’s storytelling you can zip up, slap on a water bottle, or gift to your four-year-old future brand ambassador. If you’re thinking about how merch could play a bigger role in your brand’s story, we’d love to help.

. And hey, if you ever stumble across a vintage Monster Cookies shirt* in adult sizes, do the right thing. I’ll owe you forever.

* I wish I had a pic to share, but alas, some things are lost to time. Trust me, though, that shirt was the bees’ knees.

Sometimes merch sticks around longer than anything else. This shirt, for example, was part of the 2016 rebrand of Louisville’s Waterfront Park. That’s nearly a decade ago. The rest of the launch materials have come and gone, but this shirt? Still going. Still selling at events. Still making its way into new hands. Still making people smile. When merch is well-designed and genuinely wearable, it doesn’t just support a brand, it helps carry it forward. 


Branding

Art Direction

Collateral

The Importance of Ownable Merch 



One of the key components of developing and establishing a long-lasting brand is considering your competition, your industry as a whole — and your position relative to both.

At VIA Studio, an industry competitive analysis is part of our tried and true Brand Strategy process and like other elements of our process, this one guides the work in rebranding or developing a brand.

allows us insight into similar organizations. We conduct a thorough audit of our clients’ competitors' messaging to understand how they position themselves.

Understanding the space your products and brand occupy in the market and in the mind of your consumers is critical — and studying your competitor's position helps you understand yours more clearly.

More often than not, your organization has several competitors or organizations that offer similar products. When we conduct an audit of other brands in the same industry, we get one step closer to identifying the 

 of the top players in your industry. Our audit turns into something more actionable with insights and recommendations for our clients.

in tandem with our industry competitive analysis. Similar to the industry competitive analysis, the visual brand analysis is an audit of all the current branded elements, online and offline, and allows us to analyze competitors’ usage of color, typography, design, and illustration.

, a leader in the beverage alcohol industry, through our immersive Brand Strategy process and the industry competitive analysis we conducted for them early on provides a good look into this work.

At the beginning of our Brand Strategy process, after interviewing their stakeholders, we audited the messaging and brand focus of eight of their top competitors.

After a thorough audit of each competitor one by one from a messaging and visual standpoint, we looked at them relative to Provi. This process allowed us to better understand what aspects and UVPs of Provi we wanted to elevate and lean into — and how we could separate Provi from all of their competition.

Determining the similarities and differences between your brand and your competitors’ or entire industry allows you to think more about how you can reach your consumers more effectively.

Now more than ever, brands are fighting to catch and maintain consumer attention — and all the elements of your brand together affect how users engage with or consume your brand.

Our team considers how messaging and visuals work together to establish your position. We believe that all parts of your brand must support each other and work together.

You could have the most useful product on the market, but without a solid brand positioning, messaging, and identity/design to back it up, it will be harder to see the value and cohesive, clear purpose in what you’re offering — and that’s why we see these audits as necessary. They truly allow us to map out where your brand currently is, and where your competitors are so that together we can determine where you need to go.

The biggest value in conducting these two analyses is that you gain a clearer picture of your brand, your goals and mission, and how to bring those into focus. 

This process opens the door to pivotal questions that lead you to build an impactful, long-lasting brand.

What is my position in the industry relative to my competition?

Do my messaging and visual branding materials convey my product/organization's value?

What are my UVPs and are they clearly conveyed?

What UVPs are my competitors leading with and why?

Do I want to utilize the same colors used by other brands within my industry? Why or why not?

Do the visuals and illustrations support my overall message and brand 

 if you think our approach is a match for your needs.

Positioning Your Company for Differentiation

Branding Behind the Scenes

Web Design

Accessibility

WordPress

Hubspot

GoodMaps

Photography

Websites

Treyton Oak Towers

 at VIA Studio is two components: Brand Strategy and Brand Identity. 

 is a process that helps you find the unique values of your organization and your value to your audience, and defines how you can best communicate that value. 

 is the outward expression of your company, and is crafted from your logo, colors, typography, as well as the rules that govern how they are implemented. A great identity reinforces confidence in and awareness of your brand.

Branding

Branding: Case Studies

01

GoodMaps

02

Treyton Oak Towers

Branding: Blog Posts

The Importance of Ownable Merch

Branding Behind the Scenes