Corporate swag makes an eco-friendly shift

Branded t-shirts, tote bags proudly displaying the company logo, or that customized tumbler sitting on a colleague's desk. What do all of these have in common? They're all part of a company's marketing strategy, designed to build brand awareness and nurture business relationships.

Companies use branded merchandise, products, and giveaways (aka corporate swag) as silent brand ambassadors. Every time an employee, business partner, or client uses these products in public, they boost company visibility.

With corporate swag getting more attention, especially on social media, many companies are adopting a new approach. The focus is now on eco-friendly, functional, and highly practical items that deliver long-term utility for recipients. Bagmasters examines why.

How Corporate Swag Drives Brand Engagement

While marketers retroactively turned the word swag into a backronym, "Stuff We All Get", the term originally stems from old slang for stolen loot or free goods. In modern language, swag stands for confidence or style.

The two meanings mesh together under the term corporate swag, which refers to branded merchandise. Unlike promotional products, which are targeted mostly toward clients, swag items are designed for brand visibility.

Modern corporate swag ranges from low-cost promotional items to high-end executive gifts, such as:

• Apparel: T-shirts, fleece jackets, hoodies, baseball caps
• Everyday Essentials: Reusable water bottles, tote bags, pens, notebooks
• Tech Accessories: Portable power banks, Bluetooth speakers, laptop sleeves
• Premium Goods: High-end outerwear, wireless headphones, curated gift boxes

The best corporate swag is on-brand, high-quality, and genuinely useful. Even a low-cost item like a pen can be a total win, provided it's well-made enough that the recipient actually enjoys using it.

Swag items are part of a worldwide corporate gifting culture that, in the U.S. alone, has led companies to spend $174 billion last year. This is one indication of just how important these items are for visibility and engagement.

People who publicly wear or carry high-quality swag act as active (unpaid) brand advocates. If they love the item, they may also share their thoughts on social media, praising the brand and its dedication to quality, sustainability, and overall usefulness. It's the social proof and word-of-mouth every marketing team dreams about.

The New Approach to Swag

Not too long ago, branded merchandise was mostly a staple of event marketing strategies. Ballpoint pens, generic-looking notebooks, lanyards and badge holders, and similar lightweight items were usually distributed in conference exhibit halls, trade show booths, and at job fairs.

Corporate swag's main role was to be a quick icebreaker or cheap event takeaway to get people to stop and engage with sales reps. Inside the company, swag was nothing more than a bunch of disposable promotional items.

But the change in customer behavior and the social media boom of the last decade have brought forward a new approach.

But that’s no longer enough for the modern customers or the modern employees.

Today’s buyers expect authenticity and transparency from the brands they connect with. If they’re unhappy, they’ll go to social media and talk about it. Employees, on the other hand, want to work for companies that align with their personal values.

This is why the new approach to swag is all about quality over quantity. It’s a chance to make a positive impression on possible customers, employees, and business partners. Companies need to focus on eco-friendly materials, premium brands, and items recipients actually want to keep and use daily.

Why Swag Quality and Meaning Matter

Today, people expect more from companies, whether they're employees, business partners, or clients. They know their attention and support are worth more than a cheap plastic pen. Cheap, tone-deaf corporate swag can land a company in hot water on social media, damaging reputations and creating online discourse.

A clear example of how badly timed, tone-deaf swag can work against a company's interests comes from Kellogg's "Hero" Pins debacle of 2020.  

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, frontline factory workers at Kellogg's worked overtime to keep food on grocery shelves. As a gesture of gratitude, management issued employees branded lapel pins that read "Hero" and a couple of boxes of cereal.

Workers felt insulted by this so-called reward, and images went viral across Reddit, Twitter, and TikTok, sparking widespread public outrage. This public resentment was a major factor in the massive 11-week Kellogg's worker strike in late 2021.

Good quality swag drives employee engagement and builds up communities. GitLab, one of the world's largest fully remote companies, uses corporate swag as a core culture-building tool. Its onboarding kit serves as an employee's tangible connection to the brand, and it works.

New hires are proud to post photo or video unboxings of the kit on LinkedIn (#LifeAtGitLab) and other social media platforms. This generates organic recruitment content without GitLab spending a penny on ads. Quite a clever use of corporate swag.

Zero-Waste Swag

Data shows that 40% of swag items offered as part of event marketing campaigns are thrown away right after the event. In fact, only 21% of items end up being integrated into the recipient's daily life. And it's not the recipient's fault.

The best swag items are customized to fit the recipient's life like a glove. Let's take branded bags as an example. Who doesn't need a simple but sturdy tote bag? Or a free backpack that can accommodate one's laptop and books? No one throws away a customized cosmetic pouch or a good-looking fanny pack.

Investing in durable, higher-quality corporate swag, even if it costs more, it makes for great brand ambassadors and doesn't encourage waste among the target audience.

Alignment with Company Values

Branded items don't just carry a company's logo. They can also carry messages, or they can become the message.

Salesforce, for instance, is doing a great job of aligning its corporate swag with its values. The company is known for its corporate environmental, social, and governance practices, as evidenced by its organic, recycled, or zero-waste swag. The company usually offers plantable seed paper notebooks, organic and fair-trade apparel, and co-branded stainless steel and bamboo drinkware.

Rethinking Corporate Swag for All Brands

Branded merchandise doesn’t have to be just “stuff we all get,” but rather as built-in brand ambassadors. In an effort to improve image and boost visibility, companies are shifting toward higher-quality, useful, and eco-friendly swag.

This new approach is already showing results as people love displaying the logo or message of brands they respect. They also love receiving useful, durable corporate gifts that can easily integrate into daily life, such as tote bags, high-quality notebooks, or phone protection covers.

Overall, the current corporate swag shift seems like a move in the right direction for both companies and their target audiences.

This story was produced by Bagmasters and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.