Hold on to this..

How Does This Grab You? Handle Ads for Plastic Grocery Bags
June 11, 2007
By Rory J. Thompson
Brandweek.com

NEW YORK -- There's a new way to grab shoppers: branded shopping bag handles. A new product called Grabb-It has been designed not only for customer convenience, but also for full-color glossy paperboard ads.

Created by Altivity, Irvine, Calif., Grabb-It has bagged deals with Nestlé, Six Flags and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Grocery chains including Ralphs (owned by Kroger), Publix and Price Chopper have tested it. "Customers loved it," said Neil Golub, CEO at Price Chopper, Schenectady, N.Y. The product officially launches in these and other supermarkets in July.

Each box of 400 Grabb-Its has several advertisers, so consumers get a number of impressions. Participating chains get a flat fee for each respective group of handles a marketer has per box.

"It's a revenue-generator for the stores," said Larry Weil, CEO at Weil & Associates, San Antonio, the marketing solutions company promoting Grabb-It.

The market for these carry-off ads won't be limited to grocery stores. "[We're] looking at places like Target, OfficeMax, any retailer that uses plastic bags," said Mike Hempstead, Altivity vp-sales and product development.

Carl Truly, Grabb-Its president and COO, said the inspiration for the product came from his mother. "Mom had trouble with all the plastic shopping bags. Not only did she have a problem gripping them, but then they'd fall over in the trunk of the car, and needed to be repacked when she got home."

He began tinkering with designs, and came up with the cardboard handle.

Though not everyone will be a fan (the City of San Francisco banned plastic bags in April and other cities are also considering restrictions), Truly's work with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., may help counter bad pr. A Grabb-It's test in 2005 listed data on 16 missing kids.

"Out of those 16 kids, three of them—who had been missing for more than two years—were found because of the ads on the Grabb-It handles," said Truly. "We now include a free spot in every dispenser for NCMEC. How do you put a price on that?"