You’ve heard the old saying, that someone whose feelings about another person are so evident that it’s as though they’re wearing their heart on their sleeve? When did we start wearing our Fast Food preferences all over our bodies? And pay the brand owner for the ‘privilege’?
Taco Bell’s 2019 Holiday Lounge wear Collection…
They simply refer to it as ‘merchandise’ – ‘merch’ for short – and it’s all over the the Fast Food, Resto and Snacks realm. Virtually every major Fast Food and Restaurant chain, and every Snack maker offers a range of logo wear and other stuff that fans are enticed to buy and sport in public.
The idea is twofold: First, it makes for a lot of ground-level advertising; the next best thing to word of mouth except the wearer doesn’t have to utter a word! Second, and of more practical interest to the bean counters, is that merch sales can create a whole new revenue stream for a company.
Who’s doing it?
According to People Magazine, al the biggies are clamoring for a place under your tree this Christmas…
McDonalds has just launched a new separate, permanent website for its merchandise at goldenarchesunlimited.com. They’ve got a whole slew of new apparel items including the brand’s fampus Fries Sleeve socks, t-shirts, a hoodie, a Christmas sweater that’s not really al that ugly, and even a white toque discreetly graced by a small McD’s emblem.
Red Lobster has a modest collection of seasonal wear at redlobstershop.com. Again, t-shits, sweaters and fleece jackets lead the hit parade.
OREOs has a different sort of seasonal wear collection at shinesty.com/collections/oreo-clothing . Choose from the Double Stuf (‘siamese twins’) sweater, single-occupant sweaters, pajama-ralls, pajamas with a cookie pouch, and onesies. You can tell where their minds are at…
Taco Bell is featuring a load of fleece and a ton of t-shirts at online its merch store: tacobelltacoshop.com/store.php/products/clothing . Of course they, too, have jammies and warm-ups. On item they seem to have to themselves is leggings – which I must admit look pretty good on the models they used for the photos…
And that’s just the start…
Wearables are actually just a subset of the stuff the big chains offer their fans. For example, KFC brought back their Fried Chicken scented fire logs again this season and a whole slew of other Holiday-themed junk. I mean, stuff. It boggles the mind. But what I want to spotlight today is the clothing.
Why do we do it?
More than one expert on logo wear says the phenonenon grew out of corporate employees wearing their company-logo-emblazoned clothing ‘off duty’.
“Oh! You work for Coke? Can you get me a free case?” Haw, haw.
But ‘official’ corporate wear has always had a sort of exclusivity, a chaché to it that folks have coveted. More coveted still was the ‘concert t-shirt’, that came to prominence in the 1970s. Bands used them to advertise their tours and made a killing selling them alongside their records. And, of course, ‘team wear’ has been around since the 70s celebrating just about every team and sport you can imagine. It’s a tremendous revenue earner for major pro sports teams. What real fan would dare to show up at a game without his team’s jersey?
I believe that the concert culture and the corporate culture and the sports culture evolved their t-shirt traditions in parallel but not in partnership. I will even allow that I see some validity in fans ‘supporting’ their favourite sports teams by wearing their colours. And the band tour wear is definitely closer to the sports garb in spirit and intent. Alas, all one can say about the corporate wear is that the wearer has been hoodwinked by the brand to provide a free walking billboard for it, and payed the company to do so.
Anyway…
I won’t be wearing Fast Food – Resto – Snacks wear anytime soon. Like never. And, for the reasons I’ve detailed above, I don’t approve of other folks demeaning themselves by wearing it, either. Where Sports culture and Concert cultures logowear have a legitimate reason for appearing in public’, Corporate stuff does not. A harsh judgement? Perhaps. But I stand by it and I dare you to try to change my mind!
~ Maggie J.