Tech merchandise - do you get involved?

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Are you a fan enough of technology to have acquired non-tech merchandise like mugs, t-shirts, baseball caps etc? Watching a documentary the other night about computing in the USA made me realise that it seems quite commonplace over there but is something you hardly see over in the UK. Why is this?

There are firms that give things to customers I suppose - never happened to me personally - but would you go (or have you gone) out of your way to buy something that, in essence, advertised a tech product / software?
 
wouldn't go out of my way but if it's given free in passing...
 
OP
OP
beanzontoast
Just find it strange that people are (for example) happy to wear clothing that advertises sports brands by displaying a logo, but the same is not true of technology brands - and yet technology has a wider 'audience' than sport when you think of how many people watch tv, use computers, have a mobile, use a digital camera etc. How is it that wearing a sports logo is cool, but wearing a technology-branded garment isn't?
 

Carwash

Señor Member
Location
Visby
Yeah, why not, if it's something I like. If someone would like to give me a free Debian t-shirt, I wouldn't say no!
 

Norm

Guest
beanzontoast said:
.... but wearing a technology-branded garment isn't?
From my biased position, sitting here in an Adobe t shirt with a Buell hoodie over the top, because tech = nerd / geek. And usually proudly nerdy / geeky.

Carwash said:
Yeah, why not, if it's something I like. If someone would like to give me a free Debian t-shirt, I wouldn't say no!
Ah, but how would he feel if you were wearing his shirts. :biggrin:
 

Dan B

Disengaged member
I've got a lot of stuff that was given away at conferences, but I wouldn't buy it. Mind you, the same goes for sports-branded leisurewear.

(Full disclosure: the T-shirt in my avatar was from the 2008 London Inline Marathon, and I got it free in return for trackside marshalling at the event)
 

palinurus

Velo, boulot, dodo
Location
Watford
I've got a cycling cap with Intel on it. But only because it was orange and I either couldn't find or was too tight to stump up for a Rabobank one.
 
OP
OP
beanzontoast
I'm not even sure there's a market for selling such stuff in the UK. Given away is one thing, but retailers seem to have cottoned on to the idea that people aren't really prepared to pay for tech-related merchandise. Maybe it's a cultural thing? Perhaps in the US, being tech-savvy is something people literally want to 'wear' whereas over here it's not such a big deal?
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
I don't want to wear anything just for its name... though obviously I like some things that have a distinctive style that effectively labels their clothes anyway. If its given away free I might wear it ... but I might not either (my kids wear them as nightshirts).
 

cisamcgu

Legendary Member
Location
Merseyside-ish
I have more computing baseball caps/T shirts/mugs etc.. than you could shake a stick at. Most are rubbish quality, Oracle stuff being the honourable exception !
 
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