Promotional Clothing Explored: Uniforms, T-Shirts and Other Incarnations

Promotional clothing isn’t always a t shirt bearing the name and logo of a fast food restaurant or a popular computer animation. It can be, but it can equally be any one of a number of other things – from the uniforms we see on store attendants, which promote by helping us to find them when we need them, to an old school tie.

Promotional Clothing Gives a wide range of Interpretations

In essence, an item of promotional clothing is any piece of apparel or apparel accessory that has been branded or created in a way that aligns it, and its wearer, with a business, product or service. This is clearly quite a broad definition, and gives scope for a wide range of interpretations.

The most obvious, to the consumer, is the t shirt or sweatshirt clearly branded with the logo of the owning company. This may be a branding incident whereby the manufacturer of the item displays its logo to let others see that the wearer endorses that company; or it may be branding whereby a specific establishment or company (for example, a beer brewer) uses a piece of clothing to give its devotees something to shoe their devotion with.

When you think about it further, though, you realise that many other clothing items constitute branded or promotional clothing – even where the actual logo or name of a product or company is not immediately evident.

What happens in Local Supermarket

Think about the local supermarket. The uniforms worn by the shop assistants don’t usually bear the logo of the supermarket on them – though the badges sometimes do – and yet they are immediately recognisable as belonging to the store. How? Because they are designed to look like shop uniforms; because a reasonably number of people are wearing them, some of whom make them easily identifiable in others because they are wearing them behind tills or counters; and because they are normally designed in the colours the store uses throughout. This discussion need not name them, but when you think of the colours orange; or red and blue; or green in the context of UK supermarkets you instantly know which ones are being referred to.

There is actually a great similarity between what the supermarket uniform does, and what a branded t shirt or sweatshirt does: it is just that the effect is generated in different ways. When a person wears a t shirt showing the logo of a beer, for instance, he or she knowingly endorses that beer: and suggests, in wearing the item that he or she is happy to be aligned with the known values or personality of the brand.

When a supermarket employee wears a uniform, his or her actions are meant to be synonymous with the personality and ethos of the company. A person wearing promotional clothes in uniform format is an ambassador for the brand whose colours are shown. Therefore, anything that person does is explicitly endorsed by the brand he or she works for.

The end effect is the same – though the process works in reverse. All promotional clothing is, on some level, about endorsement.

About the Author!

Celina jonesi is a freelance writer who writes articles related to promotional clothing, promotional products ,promotional items and many more.