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Strategy July 06, 2018

Drake Lets Fans Personalize Tour Jacket

The personalization offering signals an emerging trend in the music merch market.

By  Christopher Ruvo

In A Nutshell

*The $150 Scorpion Tour jacket sold out in a flash.

*Fans could have their names stitched on the left chest area.

As Counselor has reported previously, branded merchandise is progressively comprising an ever-greater share of musical artists’ revenue in the post-CD age of online streaming. In this new sales game, few pop stars excel at building their brand through logoed swag better than hip hop icon Drake. Of course, the Canadian rapper has his own fashionable streetwear line – October’s Very Own. And now, in support of his just-released fifth studio album Scorpion and the related tour, Drake has ventured into the growing vertical of mass personalization with a sweet promotional apparel offering.

Indeed, Drake was offering fans a Scorpion tour jacket that, on the back, read “Scorpion Tour Twenty Eighteen by Drake.” On the left chest area, additional printing reads “Scorpion Executive Produced By…” under which fans can have their name – or any name they like – stitched.

Fans could have the left chest area of Drake’s new Scorpion Tour jacket personalized with their name.

The $150 tour jacket was so popular it sold out within days of launch.

For promotional product pros, perhaps the popularity of the personalized offering suggests that fans of other musical artists would be interested in purchasing merch branded to those acts that can be similarly personalized. At the least, it’s a suggestion worth making when courting clients in the music niche. Furthermore, it’s reinforcement that the music market could prove increasingly fertile ground for promo sales as artists of all levels of popularity increasingly seek to monetize their brand through merch.

By the way, the Scorpion theme of the album and tour is a nod to the fact that Drake’s zodiac sign is Scorpio. As a fellow Scorpio, I concur with this Twitter user’s suggestion: