Tag: Branding Solutions

Branded Merchandise Trends That Will Make Your Campaign Stand Out

April 16, 2025

Branded merchandise trends are always changing. So how do you know which ones to follow? Some techniques are timeless, like using popular sports logos and integrating short-form videos and other smart tech features. To really stand out, however, it helps to notice which way the wind is blowing and find a creative way to harness the power of the moment.

First, be sure your landing pages and fulfillment systems are ready for action. Then explore three major trends, what makes them stand out and how they might work for you.

Nostalgic or Retro-Themed Merchandise

Putting an 80s or 90s spin on a timely message is the secret sauce to a lot of successful branded campaigns these days. From obscure references like eighties painting master Bob Ross in an Adobe ad, to a Star Wars-themed Target commercial, the message is pretty straightforward – the past is in. At least some elements of it. Music, movies and kitschy outfits, sure. Cold War politics, maybe not so much.

Pro Tip: Pay attention to nostalgia trending on social media.

What’s behind this phenomenon is apparent if you spend any time on Insta, Tik Tok or YouTube, all of which encourage audiences to revisit the past in some form. There is a lot of crossover discussion among the kids about styles their parents loved, mingled with memories from those who miss the good ol’ days.

  • Incorporate Details That Stand Out: For branded merchandise to work, think of goods inspired by past styles (e.g., vintage Ts, vinyl records, retro game consoles).
  • Pull on Heartstrings: Nostalgia has a strong emotional pull, but it should be universally appealing if you’re trying to reach a broad age demographic.
  • Aim at Multiple Generations: For example, reach out to Gen Zers as well as Gen Xers through evocative memories of a childhood fad that was amazing but now makes us laugh.

Appeal to Social Trends – with Caution

It is almost surprising how many big brands have taken chances by appealing to the latest social trend in their ad campaigns. They’re not wrong to try, though. Some have had more success than others, which is great news for smaller names. They are illustrating the difference between what makes a smart risk and something that is just plain risky.

As always with social trends, tap into the ethos of your audience, above all. How open-minded are they? What do they care about? Some savvy brands stay relevant by hinting at current events without outright supporting one cause or another. Doing so gives the appearance they are edgy for those who care, without crossing a line that might lose them customers.

  • Combine Current Trends with Themed Months. We’ve written about how brands can make use of Women’s History Month. What celebrations are up ahead that could tie to a social trend that is just taking off?
  • Be More Inspirational than Controversial. Even high-end fashion brands and luxury retailers have figured out how to leverage a moment. By making use of musical artists that might be considered rebellious and other socially conscious pop culture, businesses can create buzz and reinvigorate their image, attracting more youthful attention to their products.

Limited Edition and Exclusive Releases

People will never tire of exclusivity, especially if they think they can get a piece of the pie. You don’t have to offer VIP access to send the message that your merchandise is special, limited, and available to folks who matter. Even campaigns aimed at the youngest among us often have an air of exclusivity.

  • Advertise Your Limited Quantities: Your target groups should get the message that items like collectible merchandise or special edition apparels are available either in limited quantities or for a limited time. You get to decide whether that means there are 5 or 500 items available, on the time frame of your choosing.
  • Consider Unique Collaborations. Partnering with a luxury logo or popular influencer is another way to sell a high-value image.
  • Create a Sense of Urgency: The sense of scarcity creates a sense of urgency and exclusivity, driving demand. People are often willing to pay more for something they perceive as rare or unique.

Call HYPTE for Unique Branded Merchandise Solutions

HYPTE has paired eye-catching branded merchandise with digital marketing and live events for a variety of well-known brands. Check out our past projects and you’ll see what we mean.

Reach out to HYPTE Branded Solutions online for more information, or call us at 708-343-9730 to discuss our branded solutions.

3 Steps to Prepare Your Marketing for a New Year

December 16, 2024

Smaller brands often discover around this time what they already suspected. Despite their top-notch offerings, they lack the resources to invest more than 30 minutes a day in their digital marketing, and often skip it altogether.

As you cast your sights on new beginnings, we recommend honing in on three focus areas to end the year with a bang and get you back on track.

1. Bump up Your Shipping & Delivery Communication

The first key to ending the year on a solid note is to intensify your focus on your most urgent shipping and delivery needs. If production is shifting into overdrive, you almost certainly will need to bump up communication with folks awaiting your products or services. This is not the time to miss a complaint about a missed package because you weren’t checking your socials. If there is a minor glitch in your fulfillment and delivery system, communicating how you plan to correct course will keep it from turning into something bigger.

Shoppers will be more concerned about delivery details than usual. Will your service provider inform them when their product leaves the warehouse? Can customers choose when an item is delivered or are they given an open-ended time slot that makes it difficult to plan their day? Clients are always grateful when extra transparency is built into their orders. Alert them immediately regarding any product developments. When people know what to expect, they are much more likely to be pleased with the results.

2. Conduct an End-of-Year Digital Marketing Audit

Before leaping into the new year, it pays to take stock of the recent past. If you were to summarize your marketing experiences in 2024, what would that look like? A recent report in Forbes revealed that over seventy percent of small biz owners had negative feelings about their own marketing strategies. But you’re not an average, and paving a better way forward requires taking stock of your gains as well as your losses. Looking back at your plans from January 1:

  • Which targets were accomplished?
  • What strategies show evidence of working?
  • How many hours did your team invest — and how does that align with outcomes?
  • What was the total expense and return on that investment?
  • What measurable results have you produced, and what do they tell you about your individual strategies?
  • Where are your gaps, and who can fill them in next year?

If you’ve been conducting monthly or quarterly audits, there is already a record of data to help answer those questions. Hopefully, it reveals a happy holiday surprise. You can see a direct line from your PPC ads to your web traffic and figure out what portion of those views resulted in calls. Doing a final annual audit is important. You will know something changed if there was a sudden drop in sales after Thanksgiving and can act accordingly. Mostly, it offers you a clear, detailed picture of whether your long-term marketing is working the way you had planned.

3. Dig Into the Details in Problem Areas

SMBs usually have an idea of what’s missing. Examining the details will give you a more accurate picture of the state of your digital marketing. This makes sense, since digital branding has only gotten more rigorous as spaces are flooded with competition attempting similar techniques. Take blogging, perhaps the main type of content you will create after your website. Ten years ago, it didn’t take much to produce a successful blog. There was a lot less online competition, and SEO was more basic.

Fast forward to the present and it can take twice as long to produce similar tasks. This is partly because content quality is one of the top criteria search engines use to gauge a page’s relevance. Most internet users read blogs. Companies that produce them get more leads than those that don’t. Yet those same keyword strategies of yore will have the opposite effect in today’s online environment. A year-end audit of your efforts will let you know which areas need the most help so you can invest in better strategies in the year to come.

HYPTE Branded Solutions Can Create Your New Year’s Marketing Program

If you’ve been remiss when it comes to producing content, optimizing your web pages, or any other area of your digital marketing, it’s only because you need a partner with the skills to do those areas justice.

Ready to start a whole new digital marketing cycle on the right foot? Contact HYPTE Branded Solutions online, or call us at 708-343-9730 for a free consultation!

“September Surge” and Other Back-to-School Marketing Lessons

August 16, 2024

That feeling we had as kids of a new year beginning – only it was September and not January – doesn’t always go away. The end of summer vacation season is more than a time for parents to stock up on school supplies and send kids back to class. It can also signal a boost of new marketing opportunities that extend well beyond parents and teachers.

In fact, the ecosystem this time of year applies to many other groups that tend to get overlooked by child-focused marketers. A few you may want to add to your list:

  • Career developers
  • The food and beverage industry
  • Influencers and content creators
  • Supporters of parents and teachers throughout the year
  • College-age consumers
  • Soccer enthusiasts and the branded solutions with major league experience

Brands Should Market Fresh Starts in September

First and foremost, you want to convey a feeling of fresh starts throughout late summer and early fall. Keep in mind that consumers don’t have to parent a child to crave some sort of a fresh start in their lives. It’s an appealing concept, after all. Who doesn’t want to take steps to change a bag habit or achieve a goal? You don’t have to push the theme overtly. (That’s New Year’s job!) Just keep in mind that many folks feel a bit more ready to dive into routines related to health, education and wellbeing.

Don’t Forget Other Groups Impacted by the School Year

The impending approach of cooler weather signifies change for other groups, too. Branded merchandise in the form of T-shirts, pencils, markers, backpacks and electronic devices are all great items to push right about now. But other related themes can tie into your upcoming campaigns:

  • Adult education and job seekers
  • Restaurant industry: dietary changes
  • Fall styles and trends
  • Health and wellbeing programs

Known as the “September surge,” this time period is also associated with an uptick in career development moves such as increased job searches. This essentially means that, not unlike the beginning of the actual new year, many adults become inspired to make impactful changes in their lives. Therefore, it may be wise to consider those kinds of themes for your next event, and then couple branded workout apparel or notebooks for adults to highlight popular and timely trends.

(Find out more about trends in branded merchandise here.)

Fall is America’s Favorite Season

The other point about summer ending: not everyone has a summer-season personality. Many are relieved to put away the SPF 70 and put on longer sleeves. There are more than a few reasons that fall is considered people’s favorite season in the U.S., with 45% of Americans saying they prefer autumn to the other three seasons. It’s even more popular among women.

Marketers should be looking for creative ways to take advantage of the moment. Not by prematurely pushing pumpkin spice, but by tapping into what is so appealing about fall in the first place.

Marketers Should Find Out Who Influences Sub-Groups of Students

According to GlobalData, there were more than 33 million households in the U.S. with young kids in 2022. But there are many subgroups within that demographic, so you will want to take a closer look at who exactly you’re speaking to – and what the more effective ways to do that are. For example, a few important things to know about students, according to Social Native:

  1. A third of people on Tik Tok are adults with young kids.
  2. Most parents ask their kids’ opinions when shopping for them.
  3. However, older teens and college students (gen Z) are more influenced by their peers and YouTube than by their parents or traditional ads.

As these kinds of figures show, it’s necessary to take a closer look not just at age groups, but what kinds of students they are and who is influencing them when they shop.

HYPTE Branded Solutions Will Help You Design Your Fall Season Campaign

HYPTE Branded Solutions is here to help you at any stage of your back-to-school marketing campaign – or any other type of campaign you plan to launch.

Contact HYPTE for more on our services, or call us at 708-343-9730 to set up a free consultation today.

Top Qualities to Look for in a Branding Solutions Partner

March 6, 2024

The recent spike in branded events reflects a growing need for reliable, high-quality solutions accompanied by the best merchandise to promote your name. But with so many unknown players in the advertising and marketing industry, it can be difficult to find a partner that will collaborate with you to take your campaign to the next level.

So, where do you start? By looking for the qualities that will prove most vital to your success:

1. Quality Control

Never underestimate the role of quality in creating new fans. A partner worthy of your trust should demonstrate the highest standards, from design to production. Every growing organization at some point will need help producing items connected to their mission or corporate identity. Three common ones are:

  • Promotional souvenirs
  • Business gift items
  • Event concepts and swag

An image that doesn’t meet expectations on a mug or keychain is more than enough to create doubt in what you’ve worked hard to accomplish, including everything your brand does right.

2. Ability to Create Memorable Experiences

At its center, branding is about creating memorable experiences, and that extends to any merchandise woven into an event. Your partner should share this philosophy and know how to implement a positive brand experience at every level.

3. History of Excellence

An experienced branded solutions provider will be able to demonstrate an impressive history of successful, one-of-a-kind campaigns. There are thousands of start-up advertisers that may tempt you with big promises or a flashy website. But further exploration will let you know whether they can deliver. As always, the devil is in the details. Find out:

  1. How many years have they been in operation?
  2. Do they have a roster of impressive clients?
  3. Are they supported by a staff of skilled professionals?
  4. What range of expertise have they demonstrated in the past?
  5. Can they provide a portfolio of diverse branding projects?
  6. Can they manage every aspect of your project, from inception to delivery?

A high-quality service provider will be proud of their past projects and open to discussing their approach with you.

4. Wide Range of Creative Skills

The best results will come from a partner with expansive creative abilities. An exploration of the services offered on their website will let you know if what you’re being offered is standard, run-of-the-mill fare or something unique that will be created by a team of innovators. Most important, you want access to the kinds of projects that take a lot of creative imagination and branding expertise to generate.

5. Turnkey Branding Solutions

Why hire a different company for each stage of a project when you can work with a team that will handle everything for you? Trying to manage every detail on your own can hold you back from important tasks that enable your business to grow. The right branded merchandise partner won’t merely get the packaging and shipping handled properly and on time. They will also be able to create solutions that build emotional connections and expand target audiences.

6. Communication & Accessibility

When exploring your options, find out how each company handles communication with their clients. How much time will they put in up front to ensure satisfaction in the end results? The right partner should be open to communication and accessible when you need them should any questions arise.

Consult with Branding Experts at HYPTE About Full-Service Solutions

HYPTE Branded Solutions is staffed with a team of experts to help clients create exciting concepts that align with their values and mission. Our turnkey approach allows you to kick back while we handle whatever your company requires:

  • Branded Merchandise
  • Print Production
  • Interactive Marketing
  • Creative Services
  • Warehouse Fulfillment & Logistics

Contact HYPTE online or call us at 708-343-9730 to discuss better ways to grow your brand!