![]() That segment, which includes shrink bags, laminated films and absorbent pads, now accounts for 62% of sales. Sealed Air actually makes most of its money from food packaging, the result of its $4.9 billion acquisition of WR Grace's Cryovac unit back in 1998. "The pumpkin survived the drop," Hickey says. In 2000 Sealed Air even entered a pumpkin-dropping contest in Iowa, releasing an 815-pound pumpkin-nicknamed "Gourdzilla"-onto layers of Bubble Wrap, from a 35-foot-high crane. The bubble-heads have set up 35 labs where they woo prospects with demonstrations of packages being dropped on concrete floors, vibrated as if they were on the back of a truck driving over cobblestones or placed in vacuum chambers to see how the bubbles respond to altitude. ![]() Bubble Wrap is a better protector than either, but Sealed Air must constantly sell potential customers on its superiority. Then it went up against those insidious polystyrene peanuts, which popped up in the 1970s. "Serendipitously, Bubble Wrap and vacuum tubes met," says Hickey.īubble Wrap first had to take on balled-up newspaper, no easy sell because that packing material was essentially free. ![]() Bowers showed IBM how Bubble Wrap could protect the 1401's fragile innards in transit. IBM had just launched the 1401, one of the world's first mass-produced business computers. Bowers finally found the true value in the cellular bubbles. And though Bubble Wrap is translucent and does an okay job holding heat, that plan didn't work, either.Ĭompany legend holds that a few years after Sealed Air was founded in 1960, an innovative marketer named Frederick W. (The Beat Generation had dawned in the U.S., and funky wall coverings of bamboo and such were the rage.) When that didn't fly, they hawked it as greenhouse insulation. They sealed two shower curtains together, capturing some pungent Jersey air in a smattering of bubbles. "Our customers have always told us they wanted to save space," says Hickey.īubble Wrap, an unnatural resource of New Jersey, was invented in 1957 by Fielding and engineer Marc Chavannes. Regular Bubble Wrap arrives in 48-inch-by-40-inch rolls that hold only 250 feet the new do-it-yourself bubbles arrive uninflated in 16-inch-by-10-inch rolls of flat sheets that hold 1,500 feet. One truckload is equivalent to 40 truckloads of the already inflated bubbles of yore. "He told me before he died that his real desire was to somehow find a way to put air in the bubble when you needed it rather than when you made it," Hickey says.įormally known as NewAir I.B.-and sold at a handsome 20% premium over the old stuff-the new line reduces bulk and consequent shipping costs. It had long been a dream of the company's cofounder, engineer Alfred W. Pop!īut even Bubble Wrap needs innovation, and Sealed Air recently unveiled the latest improvement, the result of a 40-year quest: inflatable Bubble Wrap. "'Sealed Air' does lack a little marketing pizzazz," Hickey allows, squeezing yet again. The brand is so strong that the company has pondered dropping its own name in favor of Bubble Wrap, even though it provides less than 10% of total revenue. The company churns out enough Bubble Wrap every year to wrap the equator ten times. It has spawned several low-cost imitators and the ultimate brand compliment-counterfeit Bubble Wrap, made in China and found on sale at a Its intended use, of course, is to protect items during shipping, a mission Sealed Air has pursued for 46 years. ![]() On various Web sites you can pop virtual Bubble Wrap. Farrah Fawcett once bundled up in it for a Playboy photo shoot. You also can put the stuff under your doorway to deter break-ins (the Bubble Wrap burglar alarm) or stuff it in your bra (the Bubble Wrap boob job) or sleep on it (the Bubble Wrap bed).
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