M.A Merchandising
M.A Merchandising was created in 2015 to give official form to a demand that had already arrived from the market.
In the previous years, Double Excess had built visibility in the city, through events, venues, collaborations and the production of T-shirts. More and more people began to associate the project with something precise: well-made T-shirts, carefully produced, with appealing prints, good fit and a quality superior to the usual promotional shirt.
For many, we were “the T-shirt people”.
From there, spontaneous requests began to arrive: businesses, friends, venues, bars, clubs, sports teams, DJs, events, presentations, anniversaries and recurring occasions. People and organizations wanted to create custom T-shirts for employees, clients, audiences, staff or communities.
The demand was real, but there was a brand problem.
Double Excess could not become the brand used to make merchandising for everyone.
The Double Excess collections had another positioning: artistic Made in Italy T-shirts, sold in boutiques, built as objects of identity and not as simple customized products.
Using the same brand to create merchandising for venues, events or businesses would have confused the public and weakened the perception of Double Excess.
M.A Merchandising was created for this reason: to separate two different markets.
On one side, Double Excess: the fashion brand.
On the other, M.A Merchandising: the service dedicated to custom merchandising T-shirts.
The thesis of the experiment was clear: if demand comes from the market, you have to know how to welcome it without damaging the positioning of the brand that generated it.
M.A Merchandising was the right container for doing that.
M.A Merchandising spoke to those who wanted to turn their name, event or business into a wearable T-shirt.
Its natural audience was made of venues, bars, clubs, lounge bars, sports teams, DJs, event organizers, meetings, presentations, fairs, anniversaries and businesses that wanted to create fashionable, high-quality merchandising.
Not generic gadgets.
Not just any T-shirt.
The idea was to create T-shirts that people could wear every day, not only at work or inside the event.
This was an important point: if a T-shirt is worn even outside the context in which it was created, the merchandising continues to promote the business in everyday life.
The T-shirt could serve several functions.
It could be worn by the staff.
It could be given to clients.
It could be sold to the public.
It could become a small merchandising line for a venue, bar, club, lounge bar or event.
It could strengthen the sense of belonging of a team, a venue, a group or a community.
It could continue to communicate outside the workplace, outside the evening, outside the occasion.
The message was simple: merchandising for your business, but made with a logic closer to fashion than to promotional gadgets.
For this reason, M.A Merchandising did not speak to those who simply wanted to “print shirts”.
It spoke to those who wanted to create T-shirts that people would actually be willing to wear, give away or buy.
We created custom merchandising T-shirts for businesses, events, venues, sports teams, DJs and companies.
We did not create customized clothing in general.
We created T-shirts.
The visible part was the printed T-shirt.
The real work was broader: listening to the client’s need, understanding the context of use, choosing the right T-shirt, working on the graphic design and perception, producing something that did not feel like any generic gadget, but like a wearable object.
M.A Merchandising was born inside the Double Excess group, but with a distinct function.
Where Double Excess built artistic collections, M.A Merchandising built T-shirts for other subjects.
Where Double Excess protected the value of its own brand, M.A Merchandising put production and communication competence at the service of other names.
The project could serve many situations: venue staff, events, meetings, presentations, fairs, anniversaries, recurring occasions, sports teams, DJs and businesses that wanted to create a T-shirt to be worn, given away or sold.
In some cases, the work went beyond simple supply.
We proposed to venues, clubs, lounge bars and bars the creation of their own merchandising line to sell to clients.
The T-shirt thus became a product of the venue, not only a uniform or a gift.
For the business, it was a way to strengthen its identity, generate a small accessory sale and carry its name outside the venue.
For the client, it was an object to wear, a memory, a sign of belonging.
There was also a concrete operational function.
M.A Merchandising helped use T-shirts that would otherwise have remained still in the warehouse, especially mismatched sizes or stock from the Double Excess Summer Collection, a more accessible line compared with the main collections.
Those T-shirts had good quality, good fit and could become an ideal base for custom merchandising.
In this way, a possible leftover became a resource.
The real work was this: transforming a customization request into a T-shirt with brand dignity.
Not printing a shirt.
Building a small object of identity.
We observed that when a brand becomes recognizable, the market begins to attribute skills to it even beyond its main product.
Double Excess was born to sell artistic T-shirts. But its presence in events, boutiques, collaborations and the city generated a natural consequence: many people began to see in us not only a brand, but a competence.
They were not necessarily asking for Double Excess T-shirts.
They were asking for well-made T-shirts.
They were asking for that quality, that fit, that graphic care, that feeling of a product closer to fashion than to a gadget.
That is where word of mouth began.
Someone would see a well-made merchandising T-shirt and ask who had made it. The answer became: M.A Merchandising, the people from the Double Excess world.
M.A Merchandising was one of the cases in which demand was not forced by advertising. It arrived because the market had already seen a capability: designing, producing and presenting T-shirts in a credible way.
This was an important signal.
When a competence becomes visible, it can generate a side business line.
But that is exactly where the risk begins.
If that side line is developed under the same brand as the main product, it can bring revenue in the short term and confusion in the long term.
Double Excess could not be, at the same time, an artistic boutique T-shirt and the brand producing merchandising for any business.
The two worlds were close on the technical level, but different on the mental level.
The physical product could be similar: a T-shirt.
The perceived category was completely different.
In the first case, the customer bought a branded garment.
In the second, a business bought a tool for identity, promotion or belonging.
M.A Merchandising showed the value of brand architecture: it is not enough to ask what you produce. You have to ask under which name the market should perceive it.
We also observed that merchandising works better when it is not treated as secondary material.
A promotional T-shirt can end up in a drawer.
A well-designed T-shirt can be worn.
This difference changes everything.
If a person truly wears the merchandising of a business, that T-shirt becomes living communication. It walks, enters venues, events, photographs and everyday relationships.
For this reason, the operating claim mattered: creating fashionable, high-quality merchandising that people could wear every day and on many occasions.
We also observed that some venues, clubs, lounge bars and bars could go beyond internal use.
They did not only want T-shirts for staff or for an event.
They could create a small merchandising line to sell to their clients.
This transformed the T-shirt from a promotional cost into a sellable product.
The venue was not only buying a shirt with its name on it. It was buying the possibility of extending its identity outside the venue, on people’s bodies.
When a client buys and wears the T-shirt of a venue, that T-shirt becomes belonging, memory and promotion at the same time.
This was another level of the business.
M.A Merchandising was not only about “making shirts”. It could help a business build a small product line: simple, concrete and sellable.
We observed that merchandising is a form of belonging.
A team, a venue, an event or a business is not only looking for a product. It is looking for a sign that says: this is who we are.
The T-shirt becomes uniform, memory, proof of participation, object to sell, gift, staff element, community signal.
M.A Merchandising therefore showed a useful passage for the Psychology of Selling: the B2B client does not only buy a T-shirt. They buy a solution to make their business visible, wearable, memorable and, in some cases, sellable.
This moved the sale from the price of the shirt to the value of its use.
M.A Merchandising continued until 2019, gradually reducing together with the Double Excess ecosystem.
Its function was connected to the supply chain, reputation and visibility born around Double Excess. When the main brand began to reduce its exposure in the fashion sector, the merchandising service also gradually lost its most natural engine.
The project did not end because the idea did not work.
On the contrary, demand existed and also arrived through word of mouth.
And it did not stop for the same financial risk problem that had affected fashion distribution.
M.A Merchandising had a lighter model: it produced on request, normally delivered in two or three weeks and was paid on delivery or in any case within a short time. Exposure was minimal, also thanks to the stock of T-shirts already present in the warehouse.
The problem was another one.
With the slowing down of Double Excess, the natural push that fed M.A Merchandising also decreased: visibility, relationships, spontaneous requests, events, word of mouth, territorial presence.
The project therefore gradually entered a dormant phase.
It remained, however, an important lesson: a competence born inside a brand can become a service, but it needs its own name so as not to weaken the brand that generated it.
We learned that market demand should not always be satisfied with the brand that generated it.
This is one of the most important lessons of M.A Merchandising.
Double Excess had created reputation, visibility and trust. But precisely for this reason, it had to be protected.
When a brand conquers a position, every new opportunity must also be evaluated for the risk of dilution.
The fact that the market asks for something does not mean that thing should live under the same name.
M.A Merchandising taught that separating is a form of clarity.
One audience, one brand.
Double Excess spoke to those who wanted to wear an artistic Made in Italy T-shirt.
M.A Merchandising spoke to those who wanted to create merchandising T-shirts for their own business.
They were close worlds, but not identical.
Keeping them separate allowed both to be served without confusing them.
We also learned that merchandising is not a minor product.
If done badly, it is a promotional shirt destined to be forgotten.
If done well, it is a tool of identity.
It can dress a staff, strengthen an event, create belonging in a team, give clients a memory, generate accessory sales and circulate a name outside its original place.
And in some cases, it can become a small commercial line.
When a bar, a lounge bar or a club sells its own T-shirt to clients, it is not only doing promotion. It is turning its identity into a product.
This is an important passage: merchandising can stop being only a cost and become a source of revenue — simple, small, but real.
The difference is made by the T-shirt, the fit, the material, the graphic design, the perceived quality, the context of use and the ability to make it desirable.
Graphic design played a decisive role.
The graphics were appreciated, and this was not accidental. An important part of the graphic work was done by the founder’s sister, who had already created collections for Double Excess. The founder also contributed when possible, partly because he was learning to use graphic tools and enjoyed practicing.
This too was a lesson: you learn by doing.
Competence does not come only from courses or intentions. It also comes from sitting down, trying, making mistakes, improving, creating a graphic, seeing whether it works, seeing whether people like it, seeing whether someone wears it.
M.A Merchandising also taught a commercial rule: word of mouth is born when the work is visible and recognizable.
We did not need to explain to everyone that we made T-shirts. People saw them.
The request arrived because someone had already observed the result.
This is a very concrete form of proof: not the discourse around the service, but the service seen on someone’s body.
Finally, M.A Merchandising taught that a B2B line can be born inside a B2C brand, but it must have its own perimeter.
It is not enough to change a page on the website.
You have to change promise, audience, language, offer, process and quality criteria.
When brand architecture is clear, a new line does not cannibalize: it completes.
This experiment helped us field-test what works and what does not. That know-how flowed into the Mental Sciences Applied to Business.