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‘Dunkin’ Donuts joggers and McDonald’s chicken nugget pillows are selling out within hours’
Marker readers weigh in on the explosion of corporate merch drops
Over the past year, all manner of companies have been selling stuff with their brand splashed all over it. A Peloton “kitchen sink tote” by Oliver Thomas will set you back $150. A collectible bottle of Tesla Tequila is going for $250. And Stouffer’s, of mac-and-cheese fame, is selling an adult sweatsuit (we kid you not) that can be yours for $95. Welcome to Merch Madness.
Since when did every company become a merch-hype machine? It’s a question that writer Adam Bluestein investigates in his recent feature in Marker, “How Supreme-Style Merch Drops Took Over Corporate America.” “The same boredom economy that has driven skyrocketing sales of cannabis, baking supplies, gardening gear, Etsy crafts, and meme stocks also gave us the KFC-branded Crocs that someone just bought on StockX for $100,” Bluestein writes.
Some Marker readers were as fascinated as we were with merchonomics and the very big business of drops: “As someone who’s been following hypebeast culture for a very long time, it’s been fascinating to see everyone from big corporations to startups to YouTubers tap into the…
