Of the 15 ventures I’ve been full time employed by (or invested in) over my working life, only three of them made a product that you could hold in your hand. No tangible, solid product you can touch, admire, and draw confidence from. Still today, I often quip to people that I make PowerPoints and Word documents for a living.
Sectors like advertising, finance and many tech companies, often have limited to no physicality. That’s why our offices in these industries are designed to impress. They are physical credibility cues to reassure clients that the service (product) we provide, has weight, value, credibility and is worthy of trust. That is also why we invest in high quality branded objects / gifts for clients – high end coffee tumblers or a finely balanced pen carrying the firm’s logo. A physical touchpoint to reinforce trust and ideally, it earns piece of real estate on the exec’s desk.
In Part 1 of this series, I shared my mistake: I chose the wrong product at the wrong budget level and this oversight damaged credibility. In Part 2, I want to show the opposite – how branded objects, done right, operate as media channels that build trust every day.
After that early procurement mistake I made as marketing director of an e-payments firms, I shifted focus to “what works and lasts.” One smart choice I made was buying a solid, alloy-steel document holder with the electronic payments logo etched into it. It solved a common problem, keeping documents upright while editing. Mine still lives on my desk 15 years later, and I bet it still lives on many of our old electronic payments customers’ desks.
Think about what sits on your desk right now: monitor, keyboard wrist pad, notebook, pens/highlighters, sticky notes, coffee tumbler, phone charger, etc. Every subconscious glance at them reinforces associations – with the brand that made them, or the company that gave them to you. That’s why I now view branded objects as a form of media.
Paid media costs you every time someone sees your message. But desk media — the object in daily use — delivers impressions at a scale and cost efficiency few other channels can match. Psychologists have shown for decades that repeated exposure – even if we don’t consciously notice it – increases familiarity and preference (Zajonc, 1968). More recent studies confirm it: a 2021 paper in BMC Psychology found that even a second exposure to an object measurably increased positive feelings compared to a single exposure.
It’s a recurring touchpoint – a miniature billboard sitting in front of someone every day. This is camouflaged influence: the subtle power of objects that don’t draw attention to themselves but still build recall and goodwill. Their strength is in being used naturally. Each use is another impression. Each impression is another moment of credibility reinforced.
Another example of applied learning was when I produced a brushed-steel, desk utility tool/knife – with our company logo etched on the side. Our core business claim then was that electronic payments could cut labor and banking costs by 30 to 50 percent. The tool carried the line: “Cut your expenses by 30–50%.” The tool was well made and people kept it. (noting in today’s climate I would no longer give away a knife!!)
In Part 1, my mistake was distributing a branded giveaway that was of lower quality than our executive customers would have purchased for themselves. The opposite is also true. When an item is durable and works as promised, it signals that the brand behind it is equally dependable. A Patagonia jacket with your company’s logo on it isn’t just outerwear, it’s a reflection of your firm’s quality. A YETI cooler carrying your logo, isn’t just storage — it’s an anchor of credibility. Recent work in the Journal of Marketing Analytics found that repeated exposures become effective once they cross a recognition threshold (Elsen, Pieters & Wedel, 2025).
Take a look at your customer journey map – no matter how simple or advanced it is. Now, highlight every point where the customer encounters something physical: your office space, a mailed package, a branded object, a moment at an event. Ask yourself:
• Is this cue reliable, high-quality, and aligned with the credibility we want to project?
• Is there a missed opportunity to insert a tangible reminder of our brand?
This exercise often reveals gaps – and opportunities – where a physical element could reinforce trust and make the brand more “real.”
We already know this works in retail: Apple designed its stores so that every product is out, powered on, and ready to be touched. Forbes has noted that this hands-on model is central to Apple’s ability to build trust and desire before purchase.
And it isn’t only about consumer products. In professional services, researchers studying financial advisory encounters found that even simple acts like sketching numbers on a white board or circling figures on chart paper during meetings, created trust-building physicality in otherwise intangible work. These shared pen-and-paper rituals made abstract financial advice feel concrete, giving clients something they could see and touch in the moment. The study concluded that this tactile layer of interaction helped advisors strengthen credibility and connection, even when most of the service itself was delivered digitally (Dolata et al., 2024).
The broader lesson is backed by the Harvard Business Review: as Adam Richardson argued in “Touchpoints Bring the Customer Experience to Life,” physical and sensory touchpoints often carry disproportionate weight in shaping how customers perceive a brand.
Branded objects and physical touchpoints in the customer journey should not be afterthoughts. They’re reminders and small brand experiences that stick around, long after the campaign ends or after the meeting wraps. For companies without tangible products (i.e. services firms) the lesson is even sharper. Office design, the customer experience when clients visit, and branded objects may be the only physical cues of credibility you ever provide.
Choose them well, and they can work for you every day.
“In Part 3, I’ll zoom out from individual objects to the larger stage where credibility is earned face-to-face: the trade show floor. These events concentrate more physical touchpoints, more quickly, than almost any other setting.”
If you enjoyed this, click here to read part 3.
Gallo, C. (2015). How The Apple Store Creates Irresistible Customer Experiences. Forbes.
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