Asda to Relieve Women's Burden with Stronger Bags
By Bernice Hurst, Managing Director, Fine Food Network
It isn't all about plastic bags. Those trendsetting, trendspotting folks at Asda, Wal-Mart's outpost in the U.K., have announced that life is officially a burden for women. Apparently "new research has revealed that the average weight of the contents of a woman's handbag has soared over the past five years" by what they describe as a "whopping 38 percent increase" from a mere 1.72 kilos to 2.37 kilos.
Asda's research consisted of stopping fifty women at random to weigh their bags and examine the contents. Announcing that the cause can be attributed to women's struggle to cope with demands at work and home, they claimed the biggest weight gain is due to the increasing role played by women at all levels in today's corporate world. However the research also admitted "despite changing lifestyle, the greatest percentage of weight is still taken up by old handbag favorites."
Brand director, Fiona Lambert, proclaimed that women's complaints about modern life becoming a burden have turned out to be justified. "They carry the equivalent of five bags of sugar with them, everywhere they go. The contents of a woman's handbag are a good indicator for their entire lifestyle. Increasing weight must mean increasing responsibilities," she said.
In order to stay ahead of the game, the supermarket has asked manufacturers to increase the tensile strength of weight-bearing straps and stitching of future handbags to accommodate the expectation that contents will weigh in at more than 3 kilos within the next ten years.
While it is hard to dispute that many of us carry quite a few of life's necessities around with us, Asda seems to have focused on bag ladies only. One could ask, what about the boys? Joey Tribbiani from the U.S. television sitcom, Friends, may have been amongst the first to carry a man-bag but they're all over the place now as there's so much stuff that guys feel are essential and can't stuff into their pockets. Perhaps we're all becoming beasts of burden.
Discussion Questions: Have we all become beasts of burden carrying all types of stuff around? Is there a business opportunity in this for retailers?