Promotional Items
Promotional products are so common these days. There isn't a week that goes by that my dad isn't wearing some sort of promotional clothing. He has shirts from his company that he wears all the time, even when he isn't at work (it isn't a uniform or anything, he just wears them like on casual Friday or when he has to go into the office on the weekend or even when he is golfing). Promotional clothing is all over the place and people don't even realize that they are walking build boards for their companies or even other peoples.
My grandpa has a ton of shirts from my dad's and all of his brothers companies that he wears around all of the time. And every year for Christmas we have an aunt that likes to get us sweatshirts and t-shirts and apparel from the college that we go to (as if we don't have enough of that stuff in our wardrobe already). But even at school, every single day people walk around wearing these outfits that promote their school on campus. It's kind of funny, they obviously aren't trying to sell us anything, but that is kind of what it looks like. If we are walking around on campus we probably already go there, so the t-shirts or the sweatshirts other people are wearing really don't affect us very much. But when people come from high schools for a campus visit, maybe the fact that half of the school is wearing a t-shirt that promotes that university stands out to the student (who knows). Or maybe the student just thinks we have poor fashion.
The point though is that a lot of people are advertising and they don't even realize it. I bet most people don't put on a company t-shirt or a shirt for a product (that they probably receive free from somewhere) and think, “wow I am probably going to recruit new people for this company today as I walk around and run my errands”. No, actually I'm sure non=ne thinks that. But still, they walk around all day running from store to store in that shirt and people see it and become aware. It is amazing that word can get out like that about a company without anyone actually having to talk to someone else. It just shows how much advertising really can do.