What brands can learn from the good ol' hotel pen

Forgive me but, my little “bring back the zine” rant has triggered a series of thought that I just have to expand on, if you’ll indulge me, my beloveds (like you have a choice.)

If the humble zine is the coolest forgotten tool in a marketer’s arsenal, then the equally humble hotel pen deserves its own case study.

Growing up I feel like, no matter what office, or home, or home office you were in, there was always a hotel branded pen floating around. It was just an ever-present part of reality. But those days are gone. We’re no longer children and hotel pens seem to have disappeared with roly-poly bugs and white dog poop.

But they’re kind of a genius little piece of marketing (the pens, not the poop), given I’m still talking about them, despite not seeing one in 20 odd years.

The reason? Hotel pens weren’t designed as marketing. They were designed as a utility.

A little freebie for guests who might want to jot something down. But then they started leaving the building. People pocketed them, carried them into their offices, left them at cafés, lent them to friends.

The pen wasn’t an ad, but it became one. A circulating artifact, soft-selling a brand’s existence far beyond the walls of a Marriott or Hilton.

We’re in a renaissance of the hotel pen moment. Only I use the pen as a mere example. Because it’s also mugs, lighters, matchbooks, totes, coasters, napkins, and water bottles. Everyday objects are re-emerging as one of the most genuine and effective ways to put brands in people’s hands… literally.

Call it merch. Call it swag, if you must. But here’s the better definition: merch as media.

The logic is simple. When an object enters someone’s daily life, it becomes a miniature billboard. A mug used every morning is a long-tail campaign. A tote bag slung over a shoulder turns its owner into a walking poster. A lighter passed around at a party circulates a brand hand-to-hand without anyone even noticing.

Unlike a digital ad, merch doesn’t vanish when you scroll past. It lingers. And unlike a glossy brochure, it doesn’t scream “look at me.” It just sits there, doing its job, until one day you realise the brand has quietly woven itself into your routine. Got emmm.

What’s changed now is that brands are rethinking the quality and design of these objects.

No more flimsy pens or throwaway lanyards. The new wave of branded objects are designed to last. They’re thoughtful, aesthetic, and collectible.

They’re things you actually want to use, not things you guiltily shove in a drawer alongside expired loyalty cards and those receipts you said you were going to file, never to see the light of day again.

This shift sits within a bigger movement: ambient marketing.

Instead of loud campaigns designed to dominate your attention, ambient marketing is all about subtle, atmospheric influence.

Spotify curating in-store soundtracks. Brands experimenting with signature scents that linger in memory. Packaging that doubles as shelf-worthy décor. These aren’t aggressive messages, but instead gentle nudges, never demanding attention and quietly becoming part of the background hum of life.

Merch fits neatly into this ethos. A branded object doesn’t flash up in your feed or bombard your inbox. It hangs out in your periphery, useful and unassuming, until it starts to feel familiar.

Familiarity is what builds trust. And trust is what builds brands.

The other big driver of the merch renaissance is scarcity.

In a digital-saturated world, physical things feel intimate and rare. We can screenshot a meme a thousand times, but a screen-printed T-shirt only exists in a hundred copies. A risograph-printed booklet might run just fifty. A ceramic mug made in collaboration with a local artist is one-of-a-kind by design.

That’s the magic of Analogue Exclusivity.  People don’t just want the object; they want the experience of owning something not everyone has. Limited-run merch becomes social currency. It’s not just functional—it’s flex-worthy. And that exclusivity deepens the emotional connection between brand and audience.

Of course, not all merch counts as media.

The difference between an object that lingers and an object that goes straight to landfill is thoughtfulness. Bad merch is cheap plastic freebies with a logo slapped on. Good merch is something that's genuinely useful, beautiful, or fun to keep around.

So before running off and creating some new merch, ask:

• Does this object fit our brand ethos? (A coffee mug makes sense for a roastery. A branded ruler, maybe less so.)

• Will people actually integrate it into their daily rituals?

• Does it have cultural or aesthetic value beyond the logo?

If the answer to those questions is no, it’s not merch-as-media. It’s literally just waste.

We’ve always seen brands treat merch as a core part of their storytelling.

Streetwear labels like Supreme and Stüssy have long blurred the line between merch and media, turning everyday items into cultural artifacts. Indie coffee roasters send out branded mugs and matchbooks as love letters to their communities. Even tech companies are experimenting with physical objects: notebooks, pins, patches, to cement belonging among superfans.

The common thread? These items aren’t throwaway shite. They’re extensions of the brand’s voice, designed to circulate quietly and build cultural resonance over time.

The most powerful thing about merch-as-media is its subtlety.

We live in an era of marketing overload. Feeds are crowded. Ads scream louder and louder for shrinking slices of attention. And yet, a pen still sits quietly in a pocket. A mug still gets lifted every morning. A tote still hangs on a hook by the door.

These are whisper campaigns. They don’t demand. They don’t interrupt. They wait for you to notice them. And by the time you do, they’re already part of your life.

The hotel pen knew this decades ago.

Now, as brands search desperately for ways to escape the internet and connect with people in the real world, it might be time to remember what that pen taught us: sometimes the smallest objects make the biggest impression.

-Sophie Randell, Writer