Yes, Fender -like most bigname manufacturers- do offer a lot of t-shirts, coffee mugs etc. My point was more leaning towards the fact that Fender seems to have lifestyle products more off focus in the corporate room than Gibson have. In a "Build good instruments first and the gadgets will sell themselves" -sort of way, whereas Gibson keeps on putting out new guitar models with features which 95% of the customers are'nt interested in.
I remember a couple of years ago when Gibson seeked out for six new product developers and this is what was mentioned in the qualification part: " Minimum of 5 years of successful product management experience, preferably aligned to retail luxury/lifestyle products". Not anyhere was there a word about anything related to development of musical instruments, only "products".