For most people, a police mug shot would be a badge of dishonour they would do anything to erase. For Donald Trump, it’s a branding opportunity and political weapon.

The scowling, vengeful stare captured at a Georgia jail on Thursday after Trump was booked on racketeering and conspiracy charges has quickly become his 2024 campaign symbol.

T-shirts, mugs, stickers and beverage coolers bearing the first mug shot of a serving or former US president were put out by his team within hours of the photo’s release.

The image of the 77-year-old – head tilted slightly down, his eyes glowering into the camera – is accompanied on the official merchandise by the words “Never Surrender” in uppercase letters.

Notably absent from the merchandise is the local sheriff’s badge watermark that appeared in the image released by authorities.

While such a photo would surely sink any other political candidate, for Trump it plays into his narrative of a defiant, heroic victim.

“This mug shot will forever go down in history as a symbol of America’s defiance of tyranny,” screamed a fundraising email sent out by Trump 2024, asking supporters to pledge $47 in return for a T-shirt with the image.

New York-based marketing guru Daniel Binns said the photo could be a “hugely powerful” branding tool for Trump.

“As a marketer, this is his genius – that he can reclaim whatever is said, or whatever is accused, or whatever imagery is created, and turn it into something which stands for the story he wants to tell,” the CEO of marketing consultancy Interbrand North America told AFP.

Binns even likened it to the “Hope” poster from Barack Obama’s 2008 successful presidential campaign.

“It couldn’t be more different in terms of what it stands for, but that was an equally iconic piece of imagery,” he said.

The picture of Trump dressed in his trademark dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie against a grey backdrop is now arguably the most famous mug shot ever taken, joining a rogues’ gallery that includes OJ Simpson and Tiger Woods.

Trump’s embrace of the image was clear when he quickly used it to post his first message in more than two and a half years on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

He included the “never surrender” slogan and added “election interference” – his common refrain that the four criminal cases against him are a Democratic plot to derail his bid to regain the White House in next year’s election.