As usual, this past Sunday's newspaper was jam-packed with advertising supplements. All the usual fliers were there – the food coupon fliers, the fliers for local furniture stores, a flier for Best Buy, and fliers for a variety of other big retailers.

Mixed in with all the colorful advertising fliers and coupons was a brown paper bag – the type you'd get in grocery stores – or at least those that still use paper bags. But it wasn't an ordinary bag. It was an advertisement, too. It was from Office Max. Their ad was printed on the paper bag – take the paper bag to the store from January 4 through January 10, and save 15% on everything that fits in the bag.

I don't know how successful the promotion was, but my hunch is it was very successful for a couple of reasons. First, the paper bag stood out because it was a plain, brown paper bag stuck in with a bunch of fliers that all pretty much look alike from week to week. Second, the bag was pretty big – big enough to make you think about how many things you could stuff in it and save money on. Third, the ad gave shoppers a chance to choose which products they wanted a discount on. (ie, whatever they put in the bag.)

The idea behind the promotion -- giving shoppers a discount on all the merchandise they can fit in a bag – isn't new. I've seen it used once or twice by a clothing retailer. And, it's something smaller retailers could adapt to their budgets and stores to clear out inventory, or bring in new customers. Instead of inserting a pre-printed bag in the Sunday paper, the small retailer could make specially marked bags available in-store and then send out a mailing telling existing customers telling them about the promotion. They can also run an ad in the weekly shopper publications promoting their "bag" sale.

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