Steal Tezos' Tiered Prize Merch Strategy for Your Next Blockchain Conference & See How Many Queue Up
Gamified merchandise is merch you have to earn. Instead of handing it across the booth, you put it behind a small game — a prize draw, a blind box, a tiered reward — so people do something to get it. That one change is the difference between swag that gets binned by lunch and a booth with a queue.
If you run marketing for a blockchain brand at TOKEN2049, WebX Tokyo, or Singapore FinTech Festival, the problem isn't getting people to take your merch. It's getting them to remember you. And the brands winning right now aren't spending more on the product. They're just being smarter about how they give it away.
1. Why Most Confreneces Merch gets Forgotten
The quality of your merch barely matters if nothing memorable happened when someone received it. Most people walk up, grab a branded item, say thanks, and move on — the same thing they do at forty other booths. Even good merch loses, because the moment around it is forgettable, and the moment is what people actually remember.
The brands that get this right start from a different question. Not "what should we give away," but "what do we want people to do." Once you know that — share a post, sign up, come back — you build the giveaway around it. The second someone has to earn the merch, it stops being a logo on an object and becomes a souvenir of a good experience.
2. How Tezos Pulled it Off at WebX 2025
The best recent example we've seen was Teezos at WebX 2025 in Tokyo.
Instead of handing merch out, they built a Kuji-style prize draw into the booth. Kuji is the Japanese lottery format where everyone wins something, but you don't know which prize until you draw. That alone creates the buzz, because people are waiting to see what they get instead of just collecting another freebie.
And you had to earn your draw. Teezos tied it to actions that grew their community:
There were many tiers to winning the merchandise provided by Tezos at WebX 2025, and thats what kept the excitement going for the attendees. Source: TZAPAC
How attendees earned a draw at the Teezos booth:
Snap a photo at the Sogni Photobooth
Share it on X, tagging Tezos
Scan the QR code to register for the Tezos Breakfast Club
Follow the Tezos social accounts → Each action earned one chance to draw.
Soon enough, Tezos dropped the news on their X account for their attendees and followers to see how to get in on it- making the experience a whole lot more achievement-based. Source: X
Look at what each step quietly does: social reach, a registered lead, a new follower. All of it dressed up as the price of joining a game people actually wanted to play. That's the smart part.
The Prize Pyramid
The prizes weren't a random pile of swag. They were stacked in tiers, and the structure is the whole point.
Tezos didn’t just call it a day with gifitng their attendess stickers- it started with stickers and by winning other activities they could go home wiht LEGO wall art of the infamous Grand Wave painting. Source: Gumtoo.
Each tier does a job. The stickers at the bottom mean nobody leaves empty-handed, so the queue keeps moving. The Great Wave Lego at the top is the prize people point at and talk about. But the tier that decides whether the whole thing works is the middle one, because that's what most people actually win.
The mid-tier is the hardest prize to get right. Too cheap and it feels like a runner-up gift. Too expensive and you've blown the budget by day two. Tezos got it right with the playing cards — clearly better than a sticker, clearly something you'd keep, but not so pricey it breaks the bank. (If you want the full reasoning on why surprise formats beat plain giveaways, we covered it in What Makes Blind Boxes So Addictive.)
How Tezos Designed the Card
These cards were never meant to be normal conference merch, and that shaped everything.
For a blind box to work, the cards needed variants worth caring about, so made two different Japanese-inspired designs. The tricky bit was the gap between them. Too similar and the reveal falls flat. Too different and they stop feeling like a set. We wanted people to ask "which one did you get?" while still feeling like both belonged together.
Instead of giving away the same design- Tezos switched it up by making 2 different design sets keeping the attendees aniticipating which set they’re going to get. Source: Gumtoo
The cards also sat in the middle of the prize pyramid, so they couldn't feel like a consolation prize. That's why the card stock, finish, and packaging mattered. When you win something instead of being handed it, every detail changes how good it feels. And it showed: people opened their packs, compared designs, and uploaded online with the enthusiasm of what they earned.
Why Collectibility Works
Most merch is made to be given out. Almost none of it is made to be collected, and that's where the engagement is. Collectible things get compared, traded, and chased. You don't need a big budget for it either — multiple designs, limited editions, blind box formats, event-only variants. Small choices, big difference. The best merch in the room is rarely the most expensive. It's the one tied to the best experience.
3. What Brand Managers Should Learn From This
Start with the behaviour, not the product. Decide what you want people to do, then build the giveaway around it.
Make them earn it. Merch won through a draw or blind box hits completely differently from merch handed over for free.
Get the mid-tier right. It's what most people win, so make it feel like a real reward.
Brief your supplier on the experience, not just the specs. Share the plan and prize structure so the merch is built for the mechanic.
Here's What You Should Do Next
Gamified merchandise isn't a passing trend. It's a smarter way to earn attention on a crowded floor. A deck of cards still sitting on someone's desk months later is quietly doing your marketing. A branded pen isn't.
What to do next: before your next event, write down the one thing you want attendees to do, then build the merch around that action.
Gumtoo designs custom playing cards, collectible merchandise, blind box concepts, enamel pins, gift sets, and event activation products for brands across Singapore and Asia-Pacific. If you're planning an activation and want merch built around the mechanic, not just the logo, we'd love to help.
Other Blogs you may find interesting:-