This morning as I stood facing my closet and I realized that almost every T-shirt I own was given to me by some school, employer, or product whose logo was emblazoned on it. I found myself thinking of the day ahead of me and the kind of people I’d be meeting with and what each group might think of a particular branded T-shirt before deciding what to put on. I was pretty much someone’s billboard no matter what I chose.
I started to think about all the people who would see my t-shirt and wondered who else would be interested in advertising to these various groups? Why not make a little something for wearing certain apparel? How viable was it? Would a company really pay for targeted advertising? So I started searching to see what was already out there. I came across Gitchers.com which provided a directory of companies that were willing to give you or your dog a free t-shirt. You just create an account, identify a company that you want to represent, answer a questionnaire that includes age, gender, city, state, etc. Then if at least 100 members meet the same criteria, companies are encouraged to move forward with the t-shirt creation process which Gitchers organizes. It seemed like a nice way to save money on a new wardrobe, though you can only do one at a time. The bad news is that it hasn’t reached a critical enough mass that many businesses are participating.
Then I found iwearyourshirt.com I think it should be duplicated and scaled. What is so special about it? This is how Jason explains it:
“Well it’s a pretty simple idea and I’m a pretty simple guy. For 2009, I am selling the upper-half of my wardrobe (shirts). I am selling every day of the year at face value, so January 1 is $1 and December 31 is $365. I will be selling all 365 days without exception!
So what do you get for the day(s) you purchased? Well I’m glad you asked. You mail me your shirt (size: X-Large) and you get:
- Daily Video on YouTube & Ustream.tv
- Daily Photos on the blog & Flickr
- Daily Posts on the blog & Twitter
- Calendar (You/Your Company’s Logo & Website)
- All of these with me wearing your shirt and information about you, your company and/or your product”
2010 is already sold out through May and has added another guy doing the same thing in the process doubled his price. That is over $66k a year for wearing a T-shirt every day!
An alternate to this is an internet TV show Girl In Your Shirt with Jenae that focuses on start-ups. She charges $200 to be featured on her show for the day. There is also a specialized format for bands and artist that want the same treatment at Band In Your Shirt.
Does anyone know of any other similar sites? I was thinking more like a freelance site in which the t-shirt wearer would indicate the city they lived or travelled in and the average day’s travels, types of people they interact with and a fee listed per day. Jason’s in Florida so that leaves a spot for local business in a bunch of major metropolitan areas. I’m telling you, T-shirts are the new billboards. Who’s up for a marketing alternative?
Who wants one?
Cool idea! Makes me want to try it. I wonder how much time he had to spend getting started to convince companies to do it? Does he have to do that now? I’m up for getting paid to wear a free shirt. Sign me up! Do you have shirt I can wear?
Hi Howard,
We do have a T-shirt we have created, which we think is pretty cool but we’re kind bias (We’ll post on the post). One of the business we’re exploring right now is a mechanism for people to do exactly what the iwearyour shirt guy did. So we’ll let you know when that is up and going so you can get paid to wear a shirt for us. In the meantime if you’re up for a free T-shirt shoot us an email and we’ll see what we can arrange.
Mark Cuban just posted this idea on his blog – seems to tie right in:
http://blogmaverick.com/2009/09/25/a-free-business-idea-for-you/
Sweet! Thanks for the link-the comments on the post are like an instant market analysis for competitors. Tshirts4hire.com is coming soon. Anyone know a good web designer?
For anyone that wants to purchase one go to: http://www.zazzle.com/brainhuddle_com_t_shirt-235428657308728656?rf=238733617537161628