Fan Apparel

Remember that creative kid in Florida who got the attention of the University of Tennessee with his homemade T-shirt? It was the T-shirt that the school made an official design, which promptly crashed its online store's website due to demand. Since the school benefited so much from the kid's fandom and subsequent artwork, the least it could do was give him a little something for his trouble, right? It turns out that "little something" is a full ride...

While Ohio State grads and students love to remind everyone that it is THE Ohio State University, it can't claim that it is THE owner of the word "The." OSU filed an application for "The" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Aug. 8, which was shot down this week on the grounds that…

None of us here at Promo Marketing like to receive the lowercase version of spam, but if the uppercase variety were the offering, many of us would be in hog heaven. Continuing the food business trend of releasing branded merchandise, Spam is delighting fans of canned cooked pork through a line that includes close to 300 (!!!) products, including a Halloween costume that could end any debates on what people want to be come October 31...

“Saturday Night Live” would have us forever remember the 1980s thanks to Goat Boy, but the ’90s were not shabby at all in the pop-culture realm. While many people are enjoying the 21st century well enough, others like rewinding the years and thinking about the entertainment industry’s contributions to the 20th-century’s last decade. Through Dumbgood…

A fourth grade student in Florida created a hand-drawn University of Tennessee T-shirt for a school spirit day. After he was bullied over the shirt, the university sent him a care package full of swag, and turned turned the design into an official T-shirt for a good cause. It was so popular that it crashed the Vols Store website...

Outside of Texas, Jerry Jones cannot count many fans of his often strident personality, but the billionaire businessman can certainly tally dollars as the owner of the Dallas Cowboys. Yesterday, the 76-year-old secured the services of star running back Ezekiel Elliott for the next six years—and, in typical Jerry fashion, was quick to turn the prolonged contract situation into a marketing opportunity with a promo T-shirt capitalizing on a micro-moment from the saga...

Though record sales are what people often use to measure a band's or artist's success, everyone knows that its the touring and merchandise sales that really generate money. It's such a vital part of the job, and knowing that it's the most direct way of supporting artists you love financially is usually enough to ignore…

After an astonishing run that culminated in the Toronto Raptors' first NBA Championship, Kawhi Leonard has solidified himself as one of the biggest stars in the NBA, if not all of professional sports. But it's after demonstrating some charitable good will in his new (old) home of Los Angeles that he's solidified himself as one…

You'd think that a band's goal would be to make as many T-shirts as humanly possible in the hope that more fans become walking advertisements. But, British indie rockers the 1975 are trading in maximalist marketing for environmental conservation, even if it's at the expense of their own merchandising efforts. The band, which recently recorded…

Do you remember the mean kids in school who started a trend, and then—once everyone else was on the bandwagon—abandoned it immediately and made fun of everyone else still doing it, as if they hadn't been into it in the first place? That's kind of what McDonald's is doing right now, and the trend is…