Corporate Branding

Amateurs!
At Thermo Fischer, you had to work for 5 years before you got the branded Tshirt! And a base all cap.

Besides the odd biro, never once did I ever use company merch outside of an office. Definitely never used the shitty backpacks or laptop bags. Those got donated to Goodwill.

Always thought that company merch is cringe. There may be a small minority of companies that do awesome things that aren't immoral, but the majority aren't.
- OpenSUSE gives out cute little chameleon plushies and if that's wrong I don't want to be right.
- The merchiest company in my country is one that does online casino software. Worst part is, they have the highest quality merch so people actually use it. I've seen the logo on like Thule backpacks and shit.
  Hasn't gotten me to go work for them, but they're damn good at reminding people that they exist.

You still get company swag? In the 2010's, I got a ton of it, but not anymore. Maybe it is just that the company I was working at got too cheap to give out swag and when I switched jobs, I joined another cheapskate, but I assumed that it was the same everywhere.
I have enough company and recruiter swag collected during the good years that I have not needed to buy t-shirts, especially because I generally wear a collared shirt over them, so I don't care what logos and slogans they have.
- I'm union blue collar, but yeah there's still branded swag and free meals/snacks during most meetings or training OT at least where I'm at.
  Canadian plant, Texan ULC.

People run around with nike logos
And pay for it. People are walking ads
- This is why I've always loved unmarked clothes since I was in middle school. When I was a kid I was very cynical about being branded
  
  Same. While I don't necessarily do anything to actively avoid branding, I won't wear anything where it's prominent.
- There's a cyberpunk novel called Feed in which some teenager got a trendy Nike tattoo that would force him to say "Nike" in every sentence. I think that's the next step in our deliberate effort to pay for the privilege of branding ourselves.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BYFbXJKJ8U
  Transcript for those that don't want to watch the video: Secretary of State: I'm Secretary of State, brought to you by Carl's Jr. Pvt. Joe Bowers: Why do you keep saying that? Secretary of State: Because they pay me everytime I do.
  
  That sounds like those youtubers
- That's why I like mine: Very subtle branding, though if I could I'd prefer unbranded. But I only bought them because I liked the color scheme and they were comfortable.
  
  Fun fact: The colors of them are:
  Ties: Electric Blue
  Main material: Thunderstorm blue
  Soles: Fog grey
  I just think the colors have funny but cool names :)
  Edit: (Please put the hate for Linus Tech Tips (LTT) to the side for now)
  I actually like the way LTT brands some of it's merchandise.
  Some is subtle/stealth, some is only on tags or subtly integrated in the graphic design.
  I generally dislike their prominent branded items.
  
  If the zippers didn't suck the LTT back pack would be the perfect one for me.
  
  How can you tell that it's a good shoe? I tried resesrching it but it's wishy-washy
- I just realized how odd it would be to see people walking around in brandless clothes. As odd as when someone removes all the badges from their car.
  The advertising has been so prevalent for so long that it has been normalized. Fascinating.
  
  Most of my clothes are non branded with jeans being the only meaningful exception (and band t-shirts lol)
  Wearing designer brands on your sleeve is a materialism trap for poor people.
  
  You mean like a suit? Like plenty of clothing, designer or not, has no branding at all.
  
  Is it? I just checked and my current attire has no visible branding on it.
- Sure, but good luck finding a decent quality running shoe without conspicuous branding at a local shop though.
  Can't wear it, if they don't make it.
  
  This is why I spent my highschool years in combat boots. Ankle support, tough soles, the same footwear was great for hiking, shopping, whatever. Inconspicuous if your pant legs cover them. Like $40 at the time. Lasted me beyond school.
  Only downside was I lived in a desert so too much time outside would make them really hot. That, and I got a lot of people scuffing them going "HEY ARE THOSE STEEL TOE?!" (they were not)
  Meanwhile shoes that fall apart in 3 months had some giant billboard logo so you'd have to keep up with their latest image, I guess. Gross.
  
  Thanks for mentioning that. I have no idea how to judge a shoe's quality. I have to do some research
- Same with shopping bags with supermarket logos
- hmmm I don't really care about having a logo on my undershorts. Usually I'm really bothered about advertisements but in that circumstance it doesn't really bother me.
  doesnt help that every other brand of cycling shorts suck
  
  Some people wear underwear with huge names on them. I don't understand it. Good for you if it does not bother you.
  I'm not liking the idea that my partner sees an ad every time we get intimate

I'd always assumed they gave them a salary as well. Thats what I have at my job.
- Is it a fair agreement if the only salaries you can find only pay subsistence wages?
  At what point does it cross into slavery?
  Most of the time we spend alive we have little to no control over how we spend it, sure we could do "anything", but only until you run out of money.
  
  Well I think a big issue with that is monetary policy. Which bids up the price of goods using debt, as everything becomes financialized. It used to be a mortgage had a real physical cost as a lump of gold moved around, now its just numbers in a computer created out of the ether, and this bids up the cost of living in order to derive what we call economic growth. A transfer from the young to the old essentially.
  The 2% inflation we attempt to achieve is after hedonic adjustments, substitutions, and investments are taken out, and so the money supply grows at 10% a year as people are clinging by the skin of their teeth to eek out more aggregate demand to attempt to infinitely grow an economy.
  The 2% inflation was decided in the 90s with no real logic put forth as to where it would lead, and its obviously lead to huge bubbles and asset inequality as people try to profit off the first mover advantage of their debt being debased, as the CPI was progressively modified to loosen the money supply to promote more economic growth over time.
  In the late 80's they removed housing appreciation from the CPI for instance, and what do you expect that did to home prices? They did that to fix another problem with the CPI, which was that raising interest rates raised inflation during Volcker, making it a feedback loop that lead to the double digit increase in rates. So it was already broken and it was then patched like it was a car held together with duct tape.

I bring swag from my previous employers to whatever employer I am currently at :)
Let them know how much I care about company spirit.
- Bonus point if you bring stuff mainly from bankrupt companies

Just buy a seam ripper, and sanitize your branded sweater/blanket/jacket/etc from their embroidered trademark.
Isopropyl alcohol or xylene can take off most printed/transfer logos on plastic or metal objects.
Worst case scenario you give it to someone else/homeless so it doesn’t end up in a landfill or wastefully recycling an otherwise usable product.
- I like the look of the stencil/shape left behind by a removed logo.
  Feels rebellious.

I work for Microsoft. When I had a kid they sent a "care package" with some items. But literally every item had "Microsoft" or "Met Life" (our employee life insurance I think) all over everything.
I ripped the "met life" shirt off of the snoopy plush and trashed everything else.
It's not just limited to backpacks. They try to turn everything, even a kids blanket, into a fucking ad. It's so gross.
You can't send some cheap items to your employee without branding it with an ad.
I don't work for MetLife. Why the fuck would that even be on there? I guess they want to keep reminding me to get life insurance because I'm a kid. Like, holy fuck, I hate this shit.
Fuck Microsoft. Fuck their support of genocide. I didn't even choose to work here. They bought my startup company for pennies on the dollar during Covid.
- I ripped the "met life" shirt off of the snoopy plush and trashed everything else.
  Trashing was maybe unnecessary? Could've donated it to those in need.
  However I do support the sentiment. Fuck Microsoft. Hopefully you'll be able to find employment that is more fulfilling and less genocidal. (This is not a stab at you, I get working for an evil company and wanting to get away from it).
  Anti Commercial-AI license
- It’s probably also because of tax. Here in the Netherlands, you cannot provide any clothes without a logo of a certain size. Otherwise it would be seen as ‘wages’. True to some extent. This is why companies here print their logos on stuff (even for newborn rompers).
- Fuck Microsoft. Fuck their support of genocide.
  I've been avoiding Microsoft like the plague because of other reasons for a long time, so I didn't know about this.

Yeah, they did the branding thing to people too.
- Yeah I’ll take the free backpack over the actual “Yellowstone brand” to be part of the gang.
- Yes, with the backpacks.
  Didn’t you read the screenshot?
  
  He’s not talking about backpacks

What am I going to do, buy my own backpack and lug their laptop back and forth in that? I'll gladly take a free backpack
- I work for a multi billion multi national medical technology company at their office in central london. On day one after i got the job they gave me a brand spanking new top of the line macbook pro worth over £3k. I asked them for a bag for it and the IT guy who gave it to me looked like i slapped him in the face.
  "Am i supposed to walk around central london with 3k of macbook in a plastic shopping bag?"
  He produced some weird fabric envelope thing from a cupboard.
  Luckily i'm sad enough to turn up to work with my own laptop in my own bag so i did have a bag but he had no way of knowing that
- Do you get to choose it with a budget or they buy whatever cheap, uncomfortable thing was available? I'd much rather use my own equipment if I'm gonna be using it everyday.
  
  In our company we (at least IT department) get to choose our own bags (within reason). I have some generic lenovo backpack they had laying around when I started and it's decent enough. Maybe a bit smaller side on what I'd like, but it carries my laptop, headset, random cables, power supply, notepad and stuff like that just fine. And it doesn't have any kind of visible logo on it at all, unless you count the Think(r) colour scheme on zipper tabs.
  And it's also a security thing. Should someone steal my backpack it does not have any logos to pinpoint which company it belongs unless I've left my lanyard in the pocket with my rfid-tag. And of course if you open the laptop it has AD forest name on there, so it's pretty trivial to figure out, but at least I'm not advertising 'steal my things if you want access to this company' everywhere.
- My company has to pay for my steel tip shoes, yet they don't buy them branded

Personally I find it to be bad OPSEC, it just puts a big target on a potential victim from bad actors that are specifically targetting that business.
- That's why my work backpack has a nuclear bomb in it. Bad actors within a 10 mile radius will be vaporized
- If some nefarious actor wants to target me and steal my work laptop out of the work bag with the work logo on it, 🤷. I just work there, bro. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Linard! Why Isn't your GPS tracking device working.
I'll fix it right away
One year later
Linard, I need to commend you, you've been in office 24/7 365.

In the Netherlands it's Doppers

Buy a seam ripper, then spend every boring waste of time meeting picking out the logo stitching, find a new job when you're done.

Nobody can pay me enough for me to carry their logo as free publicity.
I wear logoed clothing because the logo acts as identification and grants me special acess to fenced off areas, which I otherwise wouldn't be able to lawfully acess. But when the clock is off, the logo is off.

Meh I don’t like wearing the logo outside but we get a decent number of hoodies and sweatpants which are great for WFH/indoors days. Usually a decent brand and comfy.

Which snap apart the instant you try to carry more than a laptop and some chocolate wrappers with'em...
- That's why I only buy Deuter Backpacks. Look hideous, are expensive, but don't fuck up my back and are practical and 100% reliable

Wait, what.
I have to buy company merch, if I want it. Well, I did get a tote shopping bag one day..