Fight COVID-19 With These New Star Trek Face Masks

Wearing face masks in public has become the new normal as we all continue to deal with life during the novel coronavirus pandemic. And now there is a way to show your fandom and support a good cause while following CDC recommendations.

Official Star Trek face masks

This week ViacomCBS announced the launch of reusable face masks featuring branding from a number of their popular franchises, including Star Trek. Proceeds from these ViacomCBS face masks will go to support Feeding America’s COVID-19 Response, a nationwide network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs that provides food and services to people in need. The Star Trek masks are available at the official StarTrekShop, with four different choices available: two styles inspired by Star Trek: The Original Series and two by Star Trek: Picard. Each cloth mask is washable and is therefore reusable. They are all priced at $18.95

Star Trek: TOS styled face masks

Star Trek: Picard styled face masks


Keep up with all the Star Trek merchandise news, previews and reviews at TrekMovie.com.

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These look lovely.

More, we want to to buy them, right now,
but we can’t.

I’d already visited the CBS online Store to do it before TrekMovie posted this.

However, the shipping information says that these and most other items are only available for shipping to the United States and Puerto Rico.

Same shipping details on the Star Trek official store site.

This doesn’t seem to be a COVID-19 related restriction. Goods are flowing between the US and Canada if not as smoothly or quickly as usual.

So, I’m going to do the STANDING UP WITH ARMS WAVING thing, and remind CBS folks who may be monitoring social media, once again, that ViacomCBS is trying to strategically position itself as a global entertainment company — which means branding and merchandising outside the United States.

C’mon guys at CBS ‘global’ marketing, your audience shouldn’t have to keep telling you this.

Every time you post a tweet of your new videos there is a complaint tweet that it’s not available outside the United States —except on the rare occasions when CBS or CBSAA immediately retweets with the global link.

Perhaps Bob Baklish needs to take a leaf out of Ted Turner’s playbook: there was a time when any journalist on CNN who said ‘foreign’ instead of ‘international’ or ‘overseas’ was penalized. It shouldn’t need to be so hard or draconian to enlarge your perspective.

In the meantime, I’m hoping that T-public adds facemasks to its product line, and that TrekMovie can arrange a promotion.

Tee Public did but are out. We will add them to our store when possible. Keep an eye out for update

Thanks Anthony.

They probably have a licensee based in your territory with exclusive rights to sell this category of merch. Same with videos: they have localized carriers with exclusive rights to those regions. Netflix UK, for example, hosts the videos for England, because they air the shows in that territory.

Merchandise licenses are a factor, but not usually within North America. We see barriers due to some health and safety barriers or agricultural ones, but not for this kind licensed consumer product.

More to the point, if it’s a new item from CBS own store, it should fine for them to sell within North America at least. They shouldn’t have granted broad licenses for Star Trek merchandise.

And the OP seems to say they’re ONLY available in North America & Puerto Rico, which is a very common territory distinction in licensing agreements. My guess is they have a licensee with exclusive rights overseas, and the one’s they’re selling on CBS are NOT actually made by CBS, but stock from a North American licensee with rights only to North America & Puerto Rico.

Just to be clear, the Star Trek and CBS Stores say that they are available in the “United States and Puerto Rico”.

They are not available in Canada or Mexico, which was why I flagged it.

And that’s precisely what tells me this is a territory/license agreement issue. There’s likely companies producing these– or are licensed to produce these– in Canada and Mexico. Companies pay a LOT of money for those exclusive territorial rights, and CBS would want to protect that.

T’Pol’s Beard licensing restrictions within NAFTA are not common (or the new USMCA or whatever acronym).

That’s why the Mounties ended up contracting with Disney in the 90s for a decade to manage their licensing. Someone else is doing it for the Mounties now, but the point was that with NAFTA even a national institution like the Mounties needed a high-level brand licensing manager for the North American market as a whole.

I really like the Picard style face masks

The Star Trek bourbon you turned me onto a few months ago was pretty darn good, and this merch lets me broadcast my love of Trek (and even perhaps save some lives!) without the risk of a public intoxication rap, so why not? :) Ordered one of each. LLAP!

I was wondering if anyone had actually taste tested any of the Trek themed adult beverages posted here from time to time. Good to hear that at least one of them wasn’t swill.

But can I get one that just says “DISCO” on the front?

Would these masks interfere with my ability to easily insert my fingers into my nose? I hope not because I really like to Pickhard.