blind box merch for higher education

The Thrill of Not Knowing: Why Blind Box Merch Belongs in Your Higher Ed Strategy

May 20, 2026

What if the best part of your next branded merch campaign wasn’t the item itself? What if it was the moment before someone opened it? If you’ve been to a Target lately or scrolled through any social media feed, you’ve probably seen the Labubu craze in full force. Those quirky little vinyl figures come in mystery bags, and buyers have no idea which version they’ll get. Or maybe you’ve noticed Mini Verse blind balls popping up at checkout counters everywhere. These aren’t toys for kids. They’re collectibles that adults are

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branded candy for college admissions and advancement

Candy by Color: A Surprisingly Strategic Tool for Admissions and Advancement

May 6, 2026

When a prospective student walks away from your campus visit, what do they actually remember? Not the PowerPoint about financial aid. They remember how they felt: the warmth of a welcome, the unexpected delight of a small gift. And if that moment came with a handful of color-matched gummy bears in a beautifully branded bag? That memory just got stickier. Candy by color (custom-branded confections matched to school colors, mascots, and messaging) has become one of the most strategically savvy promotional tools in higher ed. It’s easy to dismiss food

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easy campus activations for higher education events

Easy Branded Activations Your Campus Teams Can Run Themselves

April 16, 2026

Live activations continue to stand out at events because they invite people to participate rather than simply receive something. When attendees participate in creating an item, it becomes more personal and memorable. The good news for higher ed teams is that these experiences do not require large budgets, outside staffing, or complicated logistics. Many can be set up and managed by your own team with minimal effort. Before looking at how admissions, alumni, and advancement teams can use them, here are a few activation formats that are especially easy to

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reduce summer melt in higher education

From Deposit to Decision Day: How Branded Merch Can Reduce Summer Melt

April 14, 2026

A deposited student isn’t the same as an enrolled student. And in the gap between those two moments, a lot can change. Each year, admissions teams work hard to earn a student’s “yes.” But after that deposit is submitted, many institutions reduce their communication, or it evolves to be more transactional. The emotional momentum that carried a student to commit begins to fade. That’s where melt begins. The challenge isn’t just how to get students to deposit. It is how to keep them connected, confident, and excited all the way

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branded merch higher ed annual giving

The Marketing Channel Your Alumni Actually Want

April 6, 2026

If you work in advancement or annual giving, you already know this feeling: you’ve put together a compelling giving day campaign, your emails are well-crafted and well-timed, and you’re tracking every open rate and click-through. And still, the vast majority of your alumni will not give. That isn’t a failure of effort. It is a structural challenge. The average alumni giving rate at U.S. colleges and universities sits around 7.8%, down from roughly 20% in the 1980s. Meanwhile, 72% of alumni report experiencing solicitation fatigue, meaning every message from their

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branded socks drive donor engagement

Why Branded Socks Work: Lessons from McDonald’s and a University of Richmond Fundraising Success

March 23, 2026

It’s not every day that a fast-food chain becomes the largest sock seller in the world. But that is exactly what happened when McDonald’s launched The Grinch Meal in partnership with Dr. Seuss Enterprises. The limited-time meal included a pair of boldly designed socks covered in handwritten-style messages from the Grinch. The socks came in four unexpected colors and were playful enough to double as a holiday stocking. Within days of the promotion’s launch, franchisees across the country were running out of socks. McDonald’s went on to record its best

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Variable Data Best Practices

  • At the quoting stage of your project, please let us know how many fields of variable data your piece will have as this can affect pricing.
  • Data should be provided to us as an Excel spreadsheet with only the applicable data included.
  • Verbiage for variable data fields on artwork file should match up exactly with data fields on spreadsheet.
  • Spacing on artwork must allow for longest data entries. We recommend that your designer tests this in advance to confirm that the fields in the design can fit your longest pieces of data.

Postage Permits

We are happy to mail using a client’s USPS non-profit number. Here are a few best practices for this to go smoothly. Let our team know up front on the project so we can make sure to get the information we need right away. 

While our mail house does prefer to use their permit number for the mailing, we can use the client’s permit, If using their permit number, ensure there is enough postage to cover the mailing.

The information we need to in order to use a client’s nonprofit number includes the following:

  • CRID (customer registration ID)
  • Non-Profit Authorization Number (with USPS, not their nonprofit number for the university)
  • Non-profit indicia
  • Return address that is on file with USPS for the non-profit authorization number
  • Permit number

Formatting the Mailing List

Our account team will advise on specific requirements for your project’s mailing list.  We generally recommend these best practices to format the mailing list:
  • Send your data in a spreadsheet, saving it in the comma-separated values (CSV) format
  • International addresses must be separated from domestic addresses
  • Domestic addresses should at least contain data fields for “first name”, “last name”, “address 1”, “address 2”, “city”, “state” and “ZIP code”