What PPAI Expo 2026 reinforced about merch and brand
In January, I attended the PPAI Expo in Las Vegas, the largest promotional products conference in North America, alongside Wendy Addiss of Addiss Enterprises, our longtime promotional products partner.
I didn’t go because Cedar Collab is becoming a swag shop. I went because more of our clients are asking a better question than they used to: How should merch actually work as part of a serious brand or go-to-market strategy?
After a few days on the floor, and conversations with distributors, suppliers, and industry leaders, one thing stood out. Most organizations still get merch wrong. Not because it’s cheap or generic. But because it’s disconnected from intent.
Fewer, better things beat louder things
The strongest signal this year was not novelty. It was restraint.
The merch that actually performs now looks less like promotional product and more like retail. Better materials. Subtle branding. Objects people would choose for themselves.
This isn’t a trend. It’s a correction.
In an environment where every conference bag is full, one well-chosen item can do more brand work than a dozen forgettable ones. If the object doesn’t fit naturally into someone’s life, it doesn’t matter how clever the logo is.
Good merch is worn, used, or kept. Everything else is landfill.
But sometimes, loud is exactly the point
That said, subtle isn’t always the goal.
On the PPAI show floor, Wendy Addiss-Dellar of Addiss Enterprises shared a story about a client who, year after year, ordered enormous bright yellow rulers. They were impractical. They were hard to miss. People joked about them.
And they worked.
Not because anyone wanted a ruler that size, but because people stopped, laughed, and asked, “Where did you get that?” The rulers created conversation. They broke the ice. They made the brand memorable in a crowded room.
That kind of merch isn’t right for most companies. But for that client, attention was the strategy.
The lesson isn’t that novelty wins. It’s that fit matters more than taste. Good merch isn’t always subtle. It’s appropriate.
The moment matters as much as the object
Another pattern that kept showing up was experiential merch. Live personalization. Customization tied to a specific event or interaction.
Not because customization is new. Because meaning is contextual.
The same object lands very differently when it’s tied to onboarding, a milestone, a thank you, or a real conversation. Merch works when it anchors a moment people already care about. When it’s handed out with no context, it becomes clutter.
Sustainability has shifted from messaging to credibility
Sustainability is no longer a differentiator on its own. That was obvious across PPAI and ASI.
What has changed is the standard of proof. Executives and buyers are less interested in vague claims and more interested in specifics. Materials. Sourcing. Tradeoffs. What is actually defensible.
That mirrors what we see across modern marketing. Broad virtue signaling has less impact than concrete choices made with intention.
The brands winning with merch treat it as infrastructure
The most effective use of merch today isn’t decorative. It’s structural.
The organizations getting real value from it treat merch as part of a system. Onboarding. Account-based marketing. Conferences. Partner relationships. Internal culture.
They start with questions like: Who is this for? What moment does this support? What do we want someone to remember?
They don’t start with a catalog. They start with intent.
What this means for Cedar Collab clients
At Cedar Collab, we don’t start with merch. We start with intent.
Sometimes the right answer is a thoughtfully chosen object that carries your brand into someone’s daily life. Sometimes the right answer is no merch at all.
When we do recommend it, we look at audience psychology, context, timing, and brand signal. We care more about long-term memory than short-term impressions.
That’s why we pay attention to industry signals like PPAI and ASI. Not to chase what’s new, but to validate what actually lasts.
One last story
Years ago, as part of an early account-based marketing effort, a client sent custom socks to a small group of prospects. This was long before branded socks were everywhere.
Five years later, one of those prospects called. They remembered the company after finding the socks in the back of a drawer. They finally had budget and were ready to move forward.
That wasn’t because socks are magic. It was because objects, chosen with care, can outlast campaigns.
That’s the real opportunity with merch.
Not swag. Memory.