Conveyor Belt Ads

Those plain, usually dirty, black conveyor belts at the grocery store are now up for grabs as ad space. “ ‘Conveyor belts have never been on anybody’s radar screen for marketing,’ said Frank Cox, president-CEO of EnVision Marketing Group, a Little Rock, Ark., firm with a patented system to print digital, photo-quality ads directly on conveyor belts. ‘But a store with eight to 10 checkout lanes, well, you’re talking about 100 square feet of wasted ad real estate.’ “ (Advertising Age) Kroger Stores are the first national retailer to test a few dozen of the ads in their stores, but Harps Food Stores are also testing the ads. The first marketers are local companies including real-estate agents and insurance brokers, but none of the big national brands as of yet.