Case Study: Custom Event Merchandise for MITI Malaysia
Corporate Gift Case Study
Project Overview 🏛📏
MITI Malaysia is the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry. For one of their events, MITI came to us directly for a full merchandise set in their current brand look: six items, every one of them custom. With the event date already set, the items were reviewed through photos and videos taken during production instead of a mockup round, and MITI checked every detail, even measuring the logo position on each item with a ruler.
The Challenge 🎯
The six products involved different materials, surface finishes and branding methods. Non woven fabric is textured, PU has a leather grain, the flask has a matte coating, and the umbrella and foldable bag are thin woven fabrics. The same brand blue does not come out exactly the same on all of them. But when the whole set is laid out on a table at an event, people see it as one set, so the colours have to look like they belong together.
Normally we would do a mockup round first, so the client can hold each item before bulk production. For this project the event date was already set, so we worked differently: MITI reviewed the actual items as they were being produced, through photos and videos. That means every photo has to show the real thing clearly, with nothing hidden by angle or lighting.
MITI also set a clear, high standard for the finish: no visible colour difference between items, logos placed perfectly straight, and non woven bags with a clean finish and no loose threads. On stitched non woven bags, short thread ends usually appear at the corners where the stitching starts and stops, so meeting that standard meant extra work on every single bag.
What We Did 📏
We used MITI’s brand guide, which lists every colour with its Pantone code, as the fixed reference for every item. For the non woven bags, we photographed swatches of four different blues side by side so MITI could choose the one closest to their brand blue, instead of us guessing.
Because there was no mockup, we changed how we sent updates. Instead of one “looks centred” photo, we sent photos with a ruler in the frame, showing the logo position on the notebook and the flask in centimetres. MITI measured too, so both sides were checking the same numbers. Where a photo could not show enough, we sent a short video so they could see the item from every side.
Each item had its own detail to get right. The A5 PU notebook has the MITI wordmark debossed into the cover, with the colour motif printed above it, and the two had to line up. On the 23-inch foldable umbrella, the logo and motifs had to sit in the right panels once the umbrella is open. The PP hand fan is printed on both sides, and the foldable shopping bag packs into its own small pouch with a snap. For the non woven bags, we trimmed the loose thread ends by hand and checked the bags one by one before packing.
The Result ✅
All six items were delivered in time for the event and met the standard MITI set: one consistent brand look across different materials, logos where they were supposed to be, and non woven bags without a thread sticking out.
Working without a mockup round went smoothly here because MITI was clear from the start about what they expected. That made every check easier for both sides.
Planning your own event? If your date allows it, do a physical mockup. If it does not, agree early with your supplier on what counts as a pass: which colour reference to follow, how the logo position is measured and how clean the finishing must be. Put it in writing before bulk production starts. It saves a lot of back and forth later.
Planning Merchandise for Your Own Event? 📦
Planning a branded set for your next event? We put together corporate merchandise for companies and agencies in Malaysia, from a single item to six or more in one brand look. Send us your event date, quantities, preferred items and brand guidelines, and we will come back with what is doable in that time.
The same six items from this project:
A set like this also works well as a door gift for seminars, launches and annual dinners. When you are ready, drop us a message with your event date.