I Wear Your Shirt was an American

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

company that used

T-shirt A T-shirt (also spelled tee shirt), or tee, is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a ''crew neck'', which lacks a collar. T-shirts are general ...

s to advertise businesses. From January 1, 2009, I Wear Your Shirt allowed a company to buy a day in which Jason Sadler, the founder, wore a shirt adorned with the company's

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...

. Sadler wore different shirts for every day of the year. He advertised for the companies by taking pictures and by uploading videos about the companies to

Ustream IBM Watson Media (formerly Ustream and IBM Cloud Video) is an American virtual events platform company which is a division of IBM. Prior to IBM acquisition, it had more than 180 employees across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Budapest offices. ...

and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

. The company closed in 2013.

History

I Wear Your Shirt was founded by Jason Sadler of

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida Ponte Vedra Beach is a wealthy unincorporated seaside community and suburb of Jacksonville, Florida in St. Johns County, Florida, United States. Located southeast of downtown Jacksonville and north of St. Augustine, it is part of the Jackson ...

in 2008. He began wearing shirts for companies on January 1, 2009. Sadler decided to start I Wear Your Shirt after trying to come up with "a way to make some extra money without actually 'working'". In 2005, Sadler was inspired by The Million Dollar Homepage to create "something ... that would hopefully be as successful and, maybe down the road, just as profitable". He noticed that for promotional purposes, many companies gave away

s for free. Knowing that T-shirts caught people's attention, he decided to become a " human billboard" and "create an advertising medium through free social media tools". After coming up with this idea, Sadler spread I Wear Your Shirt's services through his group of family and friends and through

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

Marketing and profits

For every day of the year, Sadler donned the shirt of a different company for a set price. On January 1, the price was $1. In 2009, the price was increased by $1 for every day after January 1, and by December 31, I Wear Your Shirt's last customer for the year would have to pay $365. At the end of 365 days, Sadler's income would be $66,795. He received an additional $18,000 in 2009 from the sale of monthly $1,500 sponsorships. After factoring in the money gained from contests and other enterprises, Sadler's total income in 2009 was $83,000. Sadler also advertised the company owning the rights to his shirt by posting videos of himself wearing the company's shirt on

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, in which he discussed the companies he was promoting. In 2009, he had over 1,300 friends on

and about 21,000 followers on

. For 2010, Sadler increased by twofold the cost of the shirts. He employed Evan White from

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, to wear the same shirts on the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...

. By January 1, 2011, there were five people across the country wearing the same shirt: Jason in Jacksonville, DeAndre Upshaw in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, Angela Seales in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, Neal Brooks in Springfield,

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, and Amber Plaster in Las Vegas. According to Sadler, the company had some 1,500 clients, including Nissan and Starbucks, and increased the daily price, so that it no longer matched the day of the year. I Wear Your Shirt closed on May 6, 2013.

References

External links

Official website
{{Jacksonville Corporations Advertising agencies of the United States Companies based in Jacksonville, Florida Marketing companies established in 2008 2008 establishments in Florida Business services companies disestablished in 2013