The head (with a hat on it) says probably not, but the heart still hopes so.

Let me explain.

Do I think my favorite promotional products category, hats, is going to prevail in the ASI Promo Insanity contest? Nah, I reckon it’s going to be T-shirts.

Nonetheless, I’m rooting hard for hats to score the upset.

Never mind that hats are technically the higher seed in the semifinal match-up that’s occurring this week in our March product contest. That’s down to a quirk in the seeding that relied on ESP search data volume to establish rankings; T-shirts likely don’t get as many searches as hats in ASI’s database of products simply because they’re so popular and so ubiquitous that many distributors already know where to go for what they want.

When it comes to branded products, I think hats should be crowned king. While not an Oakland A’s fan, this cap from the MLB team is one of my personal favorites.

So seeding aside, T-shirts are the tourney favorite, in my book. And for good reason: People love them. They provide a relatively large canvas for all kinds of creative graphics and messaging. Each promo tee creates 3,400 impressions through its lifetime, with shirts that cost $7 each generating a cost per impression of just 2/10 of a cent, according to ASI Research.

(ASI Research)

But guess what? Hats aren’t far behind at all. In fact, each hat generates the same number of impressions over its lifetime, but at a slightly higher cost: A logoed hat that costs $10 has a CPI of just 3/10 of a cent. What’s more, you could argue, that hats make a better-quality impression, given that they sit front and center at the top of the head and really put a logo/branding in the spotlight.

(ASI Research)

Still, T-shirts are kept longer on average – 14 months compared to 10 months for hats. They’ve been the most sold promo product for what seems like forever.

So I get it. The numbers are stacked against hats. But let me dig into my book of sports announcer cliches and say when it comes to this match-up, you throw out the numbers.

Why? Because just as so many others feel, hats remain my favorite category.

For me, I think it has to do with coming of age in the ’90s. It seemed like most guys wore hats constantly. To be clear, I’m talking about baseball-style caps with some kind of logo or messaging on them.

“My generation was the first in which logoed baseball caps became such a prominent signifier of identity and personal affiliation.” Christopher Ruvo, ASI

My generation was the first in which logoed baseball caps became such a prominent signifier of identity and personal affiliation. If you rocked a branded skateboarding hat, that tied you to a particular teenage social tribe. Same with sports. You weren’t just showing support for that team – you were proclaiming that you were a sports fan, a fanatic even. (Or at least you wanted to appear that way.) That plugged you in to another social strata.

I went to college in New England, in an area that was majority Red Sox fans. But a lot of kids from New York/southern Connecticut attended the school – and they brought their Yankee support with them, enough to create a visible Yankee minority fandom on campus. The storied Yankees/Red Sox rivalry was reaching a new feverish high at that time, and so many guys on both sides were keen to proclaim the team they supported. How did they do this? By donning either a Yankees or Red Sox curved-bill unstructured hat. It was their daily uniform. It may sound corny, but it was fun and a kind of badge of honor to rock your team’s lid – good memories.

Beyond the sentimental reasons, I like that hats come in so many distinctive styles: structured snap-back flat bills, mid-crown mesh-back Flexfits, unstructured curved-bill strap-backs, pub caps and more. I dig that hats can be a canvas for decoration methods that range from traditional embroidery to leather patches; there’s a lot of creativity that can happen on that top-of-head real estate. It’s a key reason why my closets teem with them.

For all that, I’m hoping you’ll consider voting for hats. At least some of you have. It was still early in the voting, but as of this writing, hats were surprisingly in the lead against tees in the Promo Insanity semifinals. Hats off to you if we can keep it that way.

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