I picked up a pair of branded socks at a conference recently. My husband took one look and said, “no more”. Fair enough. The drawer is full, and the novelty has worn thin.
I handed them to our sales team instead, who immediately used them as a hook to call the client who made them. In that moment, the socks completed a perfect marketing loop: created at an event, rejected at home, repurposed in the office, and returned to the brand that produced them. It was a neat reminder that corporate merch isn’t disappearing; it’s simply evolving.
There has been a noticeable reduction in the sheer volume of “things” people pick up at events. Walk any conference floor and you’ll see fewer tote bags, fewer water bottles, fewer umbrellas. Not because marketers have become less imaginative, but because they’ve become more strategic.
The old model was built on visibility: if your logo was on something, you’d achieved a baseline level of brand presence. But financial services marketing has matured. Teams now operate across integrated campaigns, brand platforms, regulatory narratives, sustainability commitments and commercial outcomes. In that world, merch is no longer the default tactic. It’s a deliberate choice.
The decline in giveaways isn’t a retreat; it’s a sign of sophistication. Marketers have quietly accepted that volume doesn’t equal impact. People don’t need more objects; they need more meaning – and meaning is harder to manufacture than a water bottle.
Traditional merch has always had its place. Umbrellas are useful until you own three. Water bottles are helpful until you realise you already have six. Tote bags multiply like rabbits. Stress balls are a relic of a different era. Socks, oddly enough, remain the one item that earns its keep, but predictability is the enemy of cut‑through. When every stand offers a variation of the same object, the object itself stops communicating anything at all.
The best merch today isn’t about brand visibility; it’s about brand ethos. It’s about expressing what a company stands for, not just what it prints on its collateral. When merch works, it ties directly into the underlying themes of a campaign. It reflects the values the organisation wants to project.
It creates a moment of recognition — not “here’s another bottle”, but “that’s clever”. It extends the brand story beyond the stand and into the everyday life of the person who picked it up. It becomes a touchpoint rather than a giveaway.
This shift is particularly relevant as the industry heads to Monte Carlo for the annual RVS. The insurance and risk community understands better than most that the sector is changing. Protection and preparedness remain central themes, but trust, transparency and modernity now sit alongside them. Merch should reflect that evolution. Not more objects, but better ones. Not clutter, but clarity. Not giveaways, but signals.
Which brings me back to the socks. They travelled from a conference to my home. They were politely rejected. They went to our sales team. They became a conversation starter and will now be mentioned to the client who made them. That circularity is the point. Good merch creates conversation. Bad merch creates clutter.
The industry isn’t abandoning merch. It’s simply demanding that it works harder, says more, and aligns with the ethos of the company behind it. So, if you happen to see me this conference season holding a fresh pair of branded socks, don’t worry. I know exactly who to give them to.