Last night, former president Donald Trump was indicted by New York grand jury relating to alleged hush money payments to adult entertainer Stormy Daniels.
There are of course myriad takeaways and implications of a former president being indicted, such as how it could affect the 2024 election, what sort of legal precedent it sets, etc.
But, that’s not what we cover here. We cover promotional products. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the first things both Trump and Daniels did was turn to branded merchandise in this moment.
As with all pop culture moments that dominate the news cycle, demand for Stormy Daniels merchandise has skyrocketed, according to Business Insider. Think about what we’ve been covering recently with SVB and Credit Suisse merchandise popping up on eBay for exorbitant prices.
According to Business Insider, Daniels said that orders for branded merchandise are “pouring in”.
“I have so many messages coming in that I can’t respond…also don’t want to spill my champagne,” she tweeted last night. “#Teamstormy merch/autograph orders are pouring in, too! Thank you for that as well but allow a few extra days for shipment.”
According to Fortune, products like $30 dog chew toys that look like Trump, as well as T-shirts with “Team Stormy” have been selling.
And, of course, there is the side of Trump’s campaign, which also included T-shirts in its messaging last night.
Business Insider reported that Trump supporters who sign up for the former president’s emails received a message last night offering T-shirts that say “I stand with Trump” as well as the date of the indictment, in exchange for $47 donations. The offer was only available until midnight last night.
Another Trump fundraising email arrives, flogging new t-shirt#indictment pic.twitter.com/XLO8emU0Xv
— Rob Crilly (@robcrilly) March 31, 2023
“These new shirts are flying off the shelves,” the email says.
This is obviously a lot bigger than promotional products, but it’s interesting nonetheless the way that such huge news has rippled out into the branded product space, and how both parties have used their own items like apparel and dog accessories to connect with supporters.
Nothing about this is a surprise. During Trump’s time in office, the impeachment brought about opportunities for both side of the fight to print T-shirts.
These surely won’t be the last products we see throughout this whole thing. Especially given the former president’s penchant for “adversarial merchandise,” we can expect him to continue with a branding initiative throughout this process. And, on the other side, it’s likely that Stormy Daniels’ people make sure to ride the media attention wave as long as they can through some sort of merchandise sale, too.
What a world we live in, huh?
