A promotional product that dallies in a drawer or cowers in the closet doesn’t have that impact. But there are a number of areas that buyers and suppliers must keep abreast of, such as import and export regulations, ecological and environmental issues, production and personalisation methods – all of which are ever-evolving and impact on the brief and the final product.

The wide range of styles available ensures there is a bag to suit every occasion, every age and demographic group and every promotional budget. With the ability to be trendy, frivolous, rugged, environmentally friendly, dependable, sporty, or a mixture of any of these traits, bags can also echo the ethos of any brand, and that’s an important part of the creative process – to choose a product that is in tune with the brand’s inherent messages.

Bags of bags

A Bag is one promotional product that truly comes in all shapes and sizes and can be manufactured from a variety of materials. Let’s start with plastic: there’s PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride), PP (Polypropylene), non-woven PP, PE (Polyethylene), HDPE (High Density Polyethylene), LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene) PET (Polyethylene Trephthalate), plus degradable and biodegradable plastics to consider (further explanation later). For those looking for a more natural material, there’s jute, cotton, leather, silk, wool, wicker and bamboo. Then there’s nylon, polyester, rubber, canvas … the list goes on.

Bag types are almost as vast and they are mostly categorised by use, with carrier bags, shopper, make-up, toiletry, shoe and sports bags at the top of the list. For the traveller, there’s the rucksack or hold-all, then there’s the cool bag, conference bag and record bag. Bags can also be categorised by body parts, with shoulder bags, backpacks and bum bags all used in the promotional mix. From a delicate silk bag to hold precious jewellery, to huge, robust bags to carry snowboards, there are bags of bags. As we have already said, bags are useful and now they can have two uses at once, with solar powered mobile phone or computer bags, which not only carry the goods, but recharge them at the same time.

But before we would even think about the type of bag for a promotion, let alone the colour, fabric or finish, we need to consider the brief, which I always think is a misnomer, because a brief should be anything but brief.

The brief

A good brief should contain all the information available to ensure the buyer is offered a product that is compatible with the brand and the promotion. From the supplier’s point of view, a comprehensive brief will concentrate the mind and save them careering off down all sorts of potentially exciting, but ultimately incompatible, blind alleys.

A thorough brief should encompass:

• Brand/product/company profile: its identity and ethos, positioning in the marketplace, plus whether it is seeking to shift its perception or merely enhance it with the promotion in question. For example, a traditional whisky brand that has always had an upper crust image would undoubtedly use a promotional product that projects and enhances its quality. However, if the brand is seeking to widen its appeal to a younger market … then it has got to appeal and be ‘trendy’.
• Target audience: social, cultural, geographical and demographical profile is essential to ensure that the product will be right for the hands receiving it and the context within which it is being used.
• Usage description: it must be fit for purpose. A bag that’s going to house a hi-fi being carried home from the retailer, would have a totally different specification to one that’s going to be given away empty.
• Date: time of year of the promotion, indoor or outdoor (this will affect the materials that are advised)
• Timing and preparation: allow enough time for travel hiccups when specifying the desired delivery date
• Printing specification: is it simply a logo, or a logo and a message? This helps determine the personalisation method and the number of colours involved, which impact on the final cost.
• Budget: don’t forget a budget has to encompass many elements including insurance, duties, packaging, freight and testing for quality and compliance to regulations. A budget should also include the creation of a pre-production sample to ensure that both buyer and supplier know exactly what is being created. Fulfilment and delivery affect the price and the supplier needs to know whether this will be a single or multi-drop delivery and nitty-gritty like should boxes be on pallets, will someone be expecting the delivery, what times can deliveries be made etc. This is particularly important when delivering direct to conference venues.
• Environmental policy: if a company or brand has an environmental policy (e.g. no plastic bags) ensure this information is given at the outset.

With corporate social responsibility becoming a key initiative for many brands it’s important that both buyers and suppliers understand the differences between, for instance, degradable and biodegradable, and make the distinction between ‘ethical’ and ‘environmentally-friendly’ sourcing.

So, for the record, a ‘degradable’ plastic is one that breaks down over time as the chemical additive that glues it together is pre-programmed to disappear, but is essentially still made from unsustainable petrochemicals. A ‘biodegradable’ plastic is made from whole or part organic matter that is renewable and naturally breaks down as a biological process when it comes into contact with micro-organisms.

It’s important that plastic products have the correct recycling code printed or embossed on them so users know how to dispose or recycle where facilities exist.

Likewise it is important to make the distinction between ‘ethical’ sourcing which is too often interchanged with environmentally-friendly. Ethical sourcing encompasses a whole range of social principles and values, for example: Fair Trade – refusing to work with factories that employ underage workers or implement illegal working hours etc. Although part of ethical sourcing concerns the environment, it is not exclusively so. Environmentally-friendly sourcing looks at ways of minimising the impact on the local and global environment as a whole, from start to finish of the production and delivery process, from the raw materials used to the impact on the environment at the end of the product’s life.

Bags of fun

It is necessary to consider and understand all the above aspects to create a promotional bag that fits the brand values, the budget and that appeals to the end user. But don’t forget, bags can be great fun too.

Promotional bags can be the ultimate fashion accessory as in the case of the recent ‘I'm Not a Plastic Bag’, a cotton and rope creation by Anya Hindmarch, which was used by Sainsbury’s as part of a wider campaign to wean shoppers off plastic carrier bags and encourage the uptake of reusable bags. Even the trusty shopping bag on wheels, favoured by the older generation, became a top fashion accessory recently.

There’s a lot to consider when buying and supplying bags, but if you give a full brief and use a creative company – who knows? Your promotional bag could be the next ‘must have’ fashion accessory.

Sophie launched Tomato Source a year ago. She blends her marketing skills with her creativity to produce innovative merchandise.

Email: sophie@tomato-source.co.uk.

Tel: 0117 370 0333

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