This is especially true with luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada. People are either trying to impress others with fakes, or they’ve actually paid full price to become walking billboards.
Similar thing with iPhone cases that have a cutout for the Apple logo. That’s just hilarious.
“Free”
The amount of money that those conferences cost my job and the amount of time I spend blocking cold calls from vendors that gave me shwag…
“free” for me. My job has conference/training budget that is use-it-or-lose-it, so might as well go for it. You can also talk your way through getting swag without giving up your contact details, or just provide fake ones.
Alternative:
“Can I scan your badge?”
…quietly walk away backwards, staring them dead in the eye
Lol I know the feeling. Sometimes I just say “Oh we already use your product…mind if I grab those socks?”.