Welcome to the Leaders in Promotional Products and Branded Apparel

This time, the singer has partnered with Sony and the New York MTA to take over a whole subway train with a mix of print and promo.

At this point, we have to wonder whether Olivia Rodrigo has plans for world domination – or at least conquering New York City.

First, it was a building takeover in Manhattan last September through a partnership with American Express and Spotify, where walls were decorated with print displays and balloons, rooms were decorated to look like themed bedrooms, and fans left with plenty of special branded merchandise.

Now she’s partnering with Sony as well as the New York MTA to take the promotional campaign to the streets – or at least under them.

Commuters could take a special “O Line” subway car, which was decked out in Rodrigo and Sony co-branded print advertisements rather than the usual things like injury lawyers or reminders not to smoke on the train. Even the transit map was transformed, with each stop being renamed to reflect a Rodrigo song or lyric, like “Lacy Avenue” or “All-American B*tch Road.”

The whole thing took place at Bowery station, which was fully transformed into a purple color palette like her previous installment in 2023. Once fans actually got onto the cars, they could take pictures with props or in front of a selfie-friendly mirror, according to The Knockturnal.

Moving into the next car (which is typically a no-no during normal subway rides but encouraged during the promotional event), fans could try the Sony LinkBuds, which were supposedly set to two specific EQ settings by Rodrigo herself, perfect for listening to her albums GUTS and SOUR.

There was also a subway sketch artist, who would gift fans the drawings.

In the last car, fans could grab an “Obsessed” sash from the ceiling to take home or have their fortunes read by a tarot card reader.

When fans disembarked from the experience, they got a branded tote bag full of smaller gifts like candy, a beanie and a branded MetroCard.

MTA Co-Branding

This is sort of a continuation of what the MTA has been doing with co-branded initiatives, specifically with its printed MetroCards. Through the years, the MTA has worked with New York icons for limited runs of special MetroCards.

This might be one of the last times they print someone else’s brand on the paper cards, though. Back in May, the MTA partnered with indie rock band Vampire Weekend for branded cards and announced that there would only be two more co-branded cards until the program is phased out as digital payments become the norm.

MTA had only one more co-branded MetroCard up its sleeve, which it debuted this month: A collaboration with Instagram, featuring some New York creators.

But, just because the MetroCard program is over doesn’t mean that print products are on the way out.

Print-Heavy Promo for Digital Music

Even in a modern promotional campaign meant to advertise cutting-edge music technology and digital streaming, print was the star of the show. To create the immersive display and “take over” the subway, Sony and the MTA had to turn to print products to replace the standard advertisements and route maps.

And, as we’ve seen in other events like this, the brands use wide-format printing to cover walls or even things like vehicles to make sure no brandable space is left behind, as Rodrigo even did in the Paris Metro last year.

When thinking about blending print and promotional products together, it’s logical to think about the promo side first – especially if that’s the distributor’s background. This can mean putting together a gift set and then designing a branded box or bag. That’s a great idea, and is endlessly valuable in this day and age where kitting is so popular.

But there’s also plenty of space – literally – for print to be the focus and promo to serve as a complementary piece, like the branded gifts given out at the end of the “subway ride” here.

With a well-executed print display, you create one giant brand visibility exercise that continues after it’s over with thoughtful promotional gifts.

It’s time to literally think outside the box (or can, or bottle).

One of the oldest tricks in the book, or joke shop, is getting someone to open a jar of some antiquated treat like peanut brittle only to find spring-loaded snakes whizzing out of the jar. It scares the daylights out of the mark, and we all have a good laugh over it.

Society has mostly evolved past the old snakes-in-the-peanut-brittle can trick, but the idea of putting products into vessels where they might not “belong” is gaining steam in a trend that one marketing strategist is calling “Chaos Packaging.”

In short, the idea is to take a consumer product like, say, coffee, and put it into a package that instead of looking like a bag or jar of coffee looks like, say, a VHS tape in a paper sleeve.

That’s a real example, by the way.

You might’ve also seen it at the grocery store, where products like olive oil are packaged in aluminum cans with openers at the top just like a soda can.

There’s just something about the “something’s not right here” design aspect that appeals to consumers’ sense of whimsy and curiosity. For the brands, it’s a way to stand out on the shelf among the competition.

“Investing in design is even more important now that other forms of storytelling and awareness building have become not just expensive, but very crowded, so if the algorithm doesn’t find you, you’re in big trouble,” Craig Dubitsky, a former chief innovation strategist at Colgate-Palmolive and now co-founder of the coffee company Happy, told the Wall Street Journal. “But the shelf is curated.”

Happy, for another example of what coffee companies can do, packages its individual packs of beans in a plastic case that looks sort of like a mints container.

It’s a simple way for product designers to quite literally think outside of the box. You can look around at other forms of packaging or containers and think, “Does my product fit in there? Can I make it fit in there somehow?” With a bit of imagination and some clever engineering, the product could take on new life and become a conversation starter.

In the digital age, that’s crucial for brand awareness. When a product sparks conversation, the brand gets an extended lifespan through word of mouth and social media.

Lach Hall, co-founder of the sunscreen brand Vacation, which packages its products in cans that look like whipped cream, told the Wall Street Journal that this fun packaging idea made it so the company barely had to do any real marketing of its product.

“Classic Whip has done an extraordinary job for us in earned media,” Hall said. “We don’t necessarily have to do any paid promotion for it — just by having this product out in the world, it generates around 5 million views a week on TikTok [during the summer months].”

In the promotional space, creating clever packaging for a product enhances the first impression. The end-user is already smitten by the brand on display before it’s even in their hands or they’ve opened it up. Using a bit of imagination and taking the time to think about what a product could look like instead of relying on simply what it “should” or usually looks like can be enough to bring a promotional campaign to another level.

It might be as simple as changing the shape of the container to look like something else, or it might take more intricate product design and printing to use different artwork and motifs to evoke something else, playing on emotions like nostalgia or even taste to entice the end-user to your product.

Heck, I’m already thinking about which VHS coffee I want.