Cordial – Brand Merch

Building brand demand through a community-driven company store

Challenge

Cordial already had something most brands spend years trying to build: organic demand for its merch. Team members were proud to rep the brand at events, on Zoom meetings, and across social media.

What had started as a beloved internal culture program had quietly become a production headache. Every quarter, the Marketing and People & Culture teams were spending 200+ collective hours producing one-off swag orders for company events, managing inventory, fielding requests, and manually shipping packages.

Costs were rising too. Overages reached nearly $6,000 in 2021, and total swag spending had ballooned year over year. We knew we didn’t want to reinvent our swag, but we needed to channel the brand energy that already existed into a smarter, more scalable system. So we decided use the same creative power to launch the Cordial Brand Store – a place where brand, operations, and culture could intersect.

Process

Phase 1: Turn culture momentum into a launch moment

Rather than flipping a switch overnight, we treated the Brand Store like a campaign. We built anticipation from the inside out:

Teasing sneak peeks of upcoming swag
Running polls to let employees vote on new merch
Sharing behind-the-scenes content leading up to launch

The internal campaign, called “No More Stuff We All Get” set the tone. It reframed swag (S.W.A.G.) as “brand merch” – a curated, intentional reflection of Cordial’s personality. The message resonated immediately. Team members began trading guesses in Slack, wearing vintage Cordial gear on calls, and posting countdowns on social.

The launch became less of a rollout and more of a cultural event – proof that the best way to create external demand is to start with genuine internal excitement.

Phase 2: Create a brand experience worth sharing

Once live, the Cordial Brand Store extended the company’s visual and verbal identity into a tangible experience. Every detail was designed to feel connected to the brand’s ethos of thoughtful connection:

Product names cheekily riffed on our shared business language (Golden Opportunity Crew, Let’s Not Boil the Ocean Mug, Take a Deep Dive Dry Bag)
Limited edition drops balanced playfulness with premium quality
Every item aligned with one or more of the brand’s four personality pillars: Thoughtful, Imaginative, Purposeful, Optimistic

Instead of mass-produced giveaways, Cordial’s drops felt intentional and collectible. Sustainable sourcing, limited runs, and quality finishes turned merch into conversational and collectable pieces – something employees, clients, partners, AND prospects genuinely wanted to wear.

Phase 3: Simplify operations, amplify impact

Behind the scenes, the project consolidated a complex, manual workflow into a streamlined, quarterly system.

By integrating Canary (swag production), Reachdesk (inventory and fulfillment), and Shopify (storefront and automation), our creative team cut administrative time by 140+ hours annually and established a reliable cadence for limited drops.

This shift not only reduced stress and waste—it enabled smarter planning, faster turnarounds, and consistent creative quality across every collection.

The Idea Behind “Brand Demand”

“Brand demand” was the philosophy behind the project: if you create something people genuinely love, they’ll do the marketing for you. Cordial’s employees were already wearing, sharing, and advocating for the brand before the store existed. The goal was simply to make that behavior easier—and more visible.

By giving people the ability to choose what they wanted (instead of “stuff we all get”), Cordial turned swag into a form of self-expression. Every item became a talking point, every outfit a touchpoint, and every shared photo another proof point of the brand’s culture in action.

Impact

The Cordial Brand Store transformed an operational burden into a high-visibility brand engine—one that built affinity, saved money, and showcased the company’s culture of creativity and care.

Time Savings (YoY 2022–2023)

60+ hours saved annually coordinating swag shipments (Marketing)
40+ hours saved annually managing fulfillment (People & Culture)
40+ hours saved preparing event-based swag (cross-team)

Cost Savings (YoY 2022–2023)

Reduced total annual swag spend by $40,303 (-42.57%)
Reduced per-person swag spend by $316 (-45.74%)
Overall swag budget reduced by 43% YoY in 2023 and 50% in 2024
Reallocated $48,000 to other marketing initiatives in 2024

Cultural and Brand Outcomes

Cultural alignment strengthened across departments and regions
Quarterly drop cadence introduced, bringing predictability and excitement
Employee participation doubled from prior swag programs
Organic social visibility and external brand interest increased