Creative Advertisements – 30 Brilliantly Innovative Shopping Bag Designs

Shopping bags are one of the most powerful advertising tools that a company has at its disposal. “Bagvertising”, as it’s called in the business, is a great way to build brand awareness and get recognized on the street. Most companies stick to producing bags with a catchy logo or a distinctive colour, but every now and then a new bag design comes along that’s so distinctive; carriers are turned into walking billboards for a company. Take a look at the 30 brilliant bags below, each one quirky, creative and entirely unique in its own right.

1. VW Golf GTI

During the Paris Motor show, creative director, Christian Vince, and art director, Guillaume Meriuax, created this unique bag to draw the attention of every visitor towards the VW stand. This fairly simply, but highly eye-catching paper bag, which closely resembles a Golf’s side panel, was handed out at the show’s entrance and the VW stand was busier than ever.

2. SanDisk

Tom Cullinan and Graeme Bettles produced this ridiculously oversized bag for SanDisk, a company which famously produces the tiniest of memory cards. These bags were handed out at photo kiosks, to emphasize the miniscule proportions of SanDisk cards and the 4,000 photos that each one can hold. While some people might call the campaign a huge waste of paper, Sandisk couldn’t have been happier with the results, as the brand was introduced to thousands of potential new customers.

3. Meralco

Meralco is the biggest electricity supplier in the Philippines. These incredibly cool bags, which appear to turn string bag handles into electrical wires, are covered in handy electricity saving tips for Meralco’s customers. They were given away in Christmas bazaars.

4. Heineken

Jaime Rosado and Johanna Santiago of JWT advertising agency developed this bag for Heineken. Unlike most bags, which only add to the amount of rubbish sent to landfill each year, these unique sacks had quite the opposite effect. They were made from non-recyclable material from Heineken’s own billboards.

5. Magic-i

The Grey Group produced this (literally) incredible bag for Magic-I, a popular Asian magic shop. In trying to come up with a design that would mirror the magical properties of the store’s products, they came up with this – a bag which seems to float unaided in mid-air. The handles are made of nylon fishing line which is almost invisible to the naked eye at distance. Not the most comfortable bag to hold, but certainly one of the coolest.

6. Stop ‘N’ Grow

What better way to advertise a product to stop nail biting than with a bag which looks like its nibbling your fingers. This particular example, which came in two different designs – male and female – was a huge hit for David Mously, the Creative Director from Jung Von Matt Berlin in Germany.

7. ASPE Crime Stories

Pieter Aspe is a Belgian/Flemish writer known for his thrilling crime novels. This bag was given away in Belgium to customers who bought his book. It makes it look as though the holder is brandishing a rather well-polished revolver. Not the best bag to carry with you through customs!

8. Red Cross

The Red Cross and many other organizations throughout the world are desperate for blood and vast sums of money are spent each year in the hope of recruiting more donors. This bag, designed by Michael Cheung of Lem in Shanghai, China, features a groundbreaking design that turned more than a few heads on the street. The carrier appears to be wired up to a bulging bag of fresh blood.

9. Karl Lagerfeld

Karl Lagerfeld, head of Chanel, Fendi and his own Lagerfeld fashion house, is better known for designing stunning catwalk pieces than lowly shopping bags. His signature bag, which makes the carrier look like Lagerfeld (sort of) when they peer through the bandit-mask-shaped handle, has indeed graced catwalks and is not available to anybody unable to splash a few thousand on a new dress without even looking at the price tag.

10. Headhunting Agency

Compared to other bags in this list, there’s nothing particularly notable about Headhunter Agency’s bag design, yet it is every bit as eye-catching as the rest. What makes it stand out is the combination of a great image on a transparent background, making it look like you’re simply carrying a head around with you in your hand. Kind of disgusting really.

11. Ann Summers

I can’t imagine many men wanting to carry round this plastic bag after making their annual Valentine’s visit to Ann Summers, but some women are obviously keen to affiliate themselves with the brand. Certainly one for the more outgoing amongst us, the bag makes it look as though the carrier is brandishing a rather threatening looking leather whip.

12. Kong

Trendy streetwear brand Kong sell hard-to-find trainers to fashion hungry sneaker-heads. This bag, designed by Jamie Buckingham and Terry Dean of Rave Communications in Birmingham, UK, uses the string from the bag to lace up a shoe printed on the bag itself.

13. YKM

TBWA is an advertising agency in Istanbul which came up with this intelligent design for a YKM shopping bag. The double-sided bag features a man on one side and a woman on the other, each standing in a skipping pose with the bag’s handle forming the skipping rope.

14. Blush

Blush Lingerie commissioned the design of this shopping bag which will certainly make the customer blush, if nothing else. Designed to be worn around the shoulder, it transforms the carrier’s behind into a perfectly tanned and toned posterior. Only problem with the design is that when carried in the hand, the illusion is lost.

15. Condomi

This is another shopping bag guaranteed to embarrass you on the street. Even more humiliating than any other design that’s gone before, the holder appears to be grasping the crotch of a scantily clad model by carrying the bag. Fortunately, there’s a male and female version. It was designed by Draft FCB Kobza.

16. Olympics

While this bag might be rather uncomfortable to carry, it looks absolutely stunning thanks to its white, minimal design. The bag’s handle has been shaped into the five rings which make up the Olympics’ logo.

17. Lipton

Ever seen a teabag this big before? Didn’t think so! While it can’t be used to brew the world’s biggest cup of tea, it can be used and re-used for carrying stuff inside, thus helping to promote the Lipton brand.

18. Fitness Company

Think you’re strong enough to carry this bag? Well, you probably are, as it’s a lot lighter than it looks thanks to the 20kg dumbbell printed on the front. Publicis Frankfurt designed the bag which proved such a hit that people were queuing up outside the fitness and nutritional supplement shop asking for a free bag.

19. Shumensko

These one-of-a-kind paper bags caused quite a buzz for Shumensko beer when they were first introduced, becoming somewhat of a collector’s item. Shoppers, including old ladies and kids, were instantly transformed into “strong-men” as they seemingly lugged around entire crates of beer with consummate ease.

20. Clothes In Closets

Chacho Puebla and Luciana Cani of Leo Burnett Lisbon in Portugal collectively created this somewhat menacing shopping bag for Clothes In Closets. The normal handle is exchanged for a silver knuckleduster which stands out well against the bag’s black background and otherwise simple design.

21. Botanique Slimming Cream

Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the most effective. That’s the case with this bag designed by Anthony Wong and Danny Chang of M&C Saatchi in Malaysia for Botanique Slimming Cream. The bag demonstrates the (supposed) effectiveness of the product, labelling the large, front face of the bag “Before” and the thin, side of the bag “After”.

22. Children with Autism

To raise awareness of children with autism, Yosef Khouwes produced this bag featuring a ridiculously cute little kid on the side, who appears to be reaching out and holding the hand of the carrier thanks to a simple optical illusion.

23. Greenpeace

This range of bags essentially uses the same concept as the example above, but works equally well. Instead of a child, the bags feature different endangered animals reaching out for the carrier with the phrase “Give Me Your Hand” printed on the side.

24. Dreamfields

The Dreamfields Project aims to build 24 turfed soccer pitches in disadvantaged areas in South Africa so that children might get off the streets and start enjoying themselves. To help raise the profile of their campaign, they used this plastic bag – the same type of plastic bag that South African children stuff with more plastic bags and use as a football.

25. Panadol Extra

If you’ve ever had a headache so bad that it feels like somebody has your head in a vice grip, you’ll be able to sympathize with the individual printed on the side of this bag, advertising Panadol Extra headache tablets. I’m not quite sure whether the holder is supposed to be pulling his hair or reaching into his head, but either way it looks painful.

26. Panadol Extra

Pandaol is the only company creative enough to get two bags into this article. This specific example is even better than the first, being one of the few creative bags to make the most of the string bag design. Again, the exact torture that the person on the bag is undergoing is unclear – she’s either having her hair pulled or her head stretched – but again it looks most uncomfortable.

27. Muse Bags

Muse Beauty Salon worked in conjunction with Tokyu Agency Inc in Tokyo to create these super-neat bags, designed to carry colour samples of hair extensions. Rather than putting the hair extensions inside the bags, however, they used the extensions themselves as bag handle.

28. Daihatsu

Walid Abd Rabo who works for Creative Lab in Cairo, Egypt, helped produce this bag for Daihatsu which uses a car’s steering wheel as its handle. The idea’s not the most original of all time, but the execution is good and it would work well for carrying paperwork and other promotional material.

29. GAIA

Carrying this shopping bag around with you would definitely get you noticed. No… it’s not a bag for a butcher’s shop, it was designed by Duval Guillaume, Brussels in Belgium, for GAIA (Global Action in the Interest of Animals), who campaign against the production of foie gras.

30. Edinburgh Dungeon

By now, we’ve seen several designs which involve people’s hands being munched by a bag’s handle. This example for the Edinburgh Dungeon is no different, but is surprisingly scary. It’s not the blood trickling down the face that gives me the willies; it’s just that I though it was a woman before I spotted her/his hairy chest.