Accessory Marketing Turns Everyday Items Into Billboards.

Brands Transform Phones, Keys, and Wallets into Displays that Build Awareness and Affinity.

When Accessories Become Strategy

Marketers in 2025 are rethinking where brand visibility lives. Instead of relying solely on traditional campaigns or digital ads, they are embedding themselves into the daily objects consumers never leave behind: phones, wallets, and keys. These accessories, phone cases, keychains, charms, are being re-engineered to act as both carriers of products and carriers of brand meaning. Rhode’s Lip Case, Glossier’s balm keychains, and 818 Spirits’ tequila charms demonstrate a clear principle: the objects consumers use most frequently have become cultural real estate for brand expression.

The strategy is not only functional; it is deeply symbolic. To carry a brand on your phone case or keychain is to let it live in your pocket, your bag, your hand, and by extension, in the view of every peer who notices.

Rhode: From Product to Cultural Holster

Rhode Skin has defined this playbook. The brand launched $38 iPhone cases designed to hold its lip gloss and later added chains to display its Peptide Lip Tint. The design was divisive, with some calling it gimmicky, but it delivered visibility and virality. Justin Bieber even referenced his wife Hailey’s branded iPhone case in a song lyric, embedding Rhode into pop culture. Founder Hailey Bieber positioned these holders not only as merchandise but as lifestyle cues, tying product to aesthetic.

Alex Center of Center Design anticipated this shift, advising that brands should target the everyday trinity, cell phone, wallet, keys, as the most valuable surfaces for consistent brand exposure. Rhode’s success proved the concept, and soon the model was replicated across categories.

818 and Glossier: Adapting and Amplifying

818 Spirits adapted Rhode’s concept for its mini tequila bottles, releasing a keychain charm with a holder shaped to reveal the brand’s iconic label. Kathleen Braine, 818’s CMO, noted that if lip gloss can be worn visibly, so too can a mini tequila bottle. This adaptation shows how categories beyond beauty are finding relevance in accessory marketing. Glossier’s pivot was equally intentional. After noticing fans hole-punching Balm Dotcom tubes to add charms, the brand formalized the behavior into product strategy. It released official Balm Dotcom keychains with Glossier- and banana-branded charms, even collaborating with Magnolia Bakery to merge beauty with New York cultural heritage.

As Veronika Ullmer of Glossier explained, the keychain was not just a holder; it created community visibility. Seeing someone else carrying the Balm Dotcom charm produced an instant connection, an unspoken recognition of belonging. Accessories thus became both a tool of awareness and a social signal of affiliation.

Chain Reaction Across Categories

The strategy spread quickly beyond beauty and spirits. Beyoncé’s haircare brand Cécred distributed cowboy shampoo bottle charms during her Cowboy Carter tour, tying product marketing to cultural fandom. Ikea turned its iconic meatballs into smiley plush charms, injecting humor and national identity into accessory marketing. Harry Styles’s Pleasing brand collaborated with JW Anderson on a tongue-in-cheek keychain design, leaning into provocation as a form of cultural differentiation.

Meanwhile, restaurant chain Cava gave out pita-chip plushies in blind bags, attaching clips after observing the global keychain trend. Andy Rebhun, Cava’s CMO, explained the rationale: the clip transformed the plushie into a carryable badge that fans displayed on bags and backpacks, creating visibility in real life and on TikTok.

Each of these executions illustrates the same logic: small, playful, and highly visible accessories can achieve scale by tapping into consumer joy and the social mechanics of display.

From Fun to Functional Visibility

While some critics dismiss accessory marketing as trivial, marketers argue that fun and whimsy are precisely the point. In a climate heavy with crises, playful brand interactions offer relief. Alex Center points out that “fun” is not a frivolous add-on but a cultural need consumers expect from brands.

At the same time, accessories retain functional purpose. They hold lip balm, mini bottles, gloss tubes, or plush characters, ensuring consumers continue to use them daily. This duality, functional utility plus playful visibility, makes them potent. Accessories transform the consumer into a brand ambassador with minimal effort. Unlike traditional merchandise such as T-shirts, which require a conscious decision to wear, keychains and phone cases become second nature. Every time a consumer reaches for keys or a phone, the brand mark is seen, shared, and reinforced.

Strategic Consequences: Affinity Through Display

Accessory marketing delivers more than fleeting visibility. It builds affinity through daily repetition and shared display. Each charm, clip, or holder creates three strategic layers of value. First, awareness: accessories act as portable billboards, spreading logos and products into public spaces. Second, affinity: consumers who choose to display the accessory are signaling not just use of the product but endorsement of the brand. Third, community: as Glossier’s Ullmer noted, spotting someone else with the same charm fosters instant recognition, bonding consumers together outside formal brand spaces.

This turns accessories into cultural micro-merch, objects small in size but powerful in signaling. For marketers, the consequence is profound. Instead of renting attention through media, brands are engineering visibility into the personal objects consumers already carry, shifting marketing from external exposure to intimate integration.

Recommendations

• Prioritize Carried Surfaces. Phones, keys, and wallets are perpetual touchpoints. Embedding branding into these items guarantees daily exposure in physical and digital spaces.

• Engineer For Display. Design holders and charms to intentionally reveal logos, shapes, or brand colors. Accessories that hide the brand miss the opportunity for awareness.

• Balance Whimsy With Equity. Playfulness builds cultural relevance, but design should still reflect brand identity. Ikea’s meatball charm felt aligned; a misaligned gimmick risks dilution.

• Leverage Consumer Behavior. Study organic hacks, like Glossier fans hole-punching tubes—and formalize them into brand-led products. Authenticity comes from amplifying what fans already do.

• Treat Accessories As Loyalty Infrastructure. Beyond visibility, accessories generate pride of display. Track adoption as a measure of affinity and embed accessory strategy into broader brand identity work.

Bottom Line: Accessories are the New Billboards of Brand Culture

In 2025, brands are not just selling products, they are embedding themselves into the objects consumers carry every day. From lip gloss cases to tequila keychains to pita-chip plushies, accessories have become cultural signifiers that transform consumers into mobile ambassadors.

The outcome is not simply visibility but loyalty, as daily display reshapes brand identity into lived identity.