Insights from the University of Iowa’s December, 2025 Student Survey

The college search process is crowded, emotional, and often overwhelming. Prospective students are navigating campus visits, emails, mailers, conversations, and countless digital touchpoints, all while trying to imagine where they might belong.

In the middle of that noise, branded merch can feel a bit small. A t-shirt. A sticker. A pen.

But when done intentionally, those items do more than promote a logo. They shape how students feel and what they remember.

To better understand the role branded merch plays in the college search, we analyzed results from a recent University of Iowa survey of 73 current students. The findings reinforce something we’ve long believed: merch matters most not as a marketing tactic, but as an experience touchpoint.

Branded merch shapes perception through emotion

Survey respondents rarely positioned branded merch as the sole deciding factor in where they enrolled. But that framing misses the bigger point.

What the data shows is that branded merch plays a meaningful role in shaping perceptions during the college search. It contributes to how students experience institutions in small but memorable ways.

When current students asked how receiving branded merch made them feel, the most common responses were:

• Excited

• Appreciated

• Happy

In a process that can often feel transactional or overwhelming, branded merch becomes a tangible signal of welcome and thoughtfulness. It reinforces emotional cues that shape how students remember their interactions with a school.

In our recent article, Building Fans, True Impact: 3 Takeaways on the Power of Merch in Higher Education, we explored how physical merch creates real emotional impact in a digital-first world. The survey data reinforces that perspective. Students don’t just receive merch. They associate it with moments and feelings.

Branded merch works best not as persuasion, but as experience reinforcement.

Utility drives what students remember

When respondents described their favorite piece of branded merch, one theme stood out: usefulness. 

The most frequently cited reason an item stood out was utility or daily use. Apparel, especially t-shirts and sweatshirts, dominated favorites, far outperforming other items. This pattern is reflected in broader research. A PPAI survey found that across generations, including Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z, apparel was consistently the most popular promotional product. Utility and wearability matter most.

Students don’t remember merch because it’s flashy.

They remember it because it fits into their lives.

That pattern continues when looking at what respondents still use from their college search. While not every respondent reported continued use, nearly 1 in 5 explicitly stated they still use branded merch. The items most often still in use were wearable or routine-based: t-shirts, sweatshirts, pens, and stickers.

Longevity isn’t about permanence. It’s about integration. 

And integration happens when merch aligns with how students express themselves and move through their daily lives. That’s where merch shifts from promotional to personal.

Choice changes the equation

One of the clearest signals from the survey came from a simple question:

If offered a choice of branded merch options, how likely would you be to choose something you’d use?

The overwhelming majority said they would be very or somewhat likely to choose something they expect to use.

That preference aligns directly with everything else in the data. Students value merch that is useful, wearable, and integrated into their routines. When they have agency, perceived value increases. So does the likelihood that merch becomes part of their everyday experience.

This is why more colleges are exploring curated, choice-based models. Rather than distributing the same item to everyone, these approaches allow students to select items that align with their preferences and identity. Early learnings from those programs reinforce what this survey suggests: when students choose, merch feels more intentional, and has greater impact.

Choice isn’t just operational. It’s experiential.

What this means for higher education

The takeaway from this survey isn’t that branded merch should try harder to “convert” students.

It’s that merch works best when it’s treated as part of the experience design of the college search.

When merch is:

• Useful
• Wearable
• Thoughtfully selected
• Emotionally resonant

… it reinforces positive perception, creates moments of connection, and extends institutional presence well beyond a single campaign or event.

Branded merch doesn’t need to be transactional to be effective. It needs to be intentional.

When colleges combine emotional impact, identity expression, and thoughtful choice, merch becomes more than a branded item. It becomes part of the story students tell about their college search experience, and part of how they remember the institution long after.