Board game:Acme Check-out Game

Recommended by "Parents" magazine and guaranteed by "Good Housekeeping," Milton Bradley's 1959 Acme Check-Out Game promotes shopping for real brand-name products at a real supermarket chain. As players race across the supermarket-style game board to be the first to complete their shopping lists, they use game cards containing specific product endorsements with recommendations to purchase "these fine products for your real ACME shopping list!" Little more than a thinly disguised advertisement for the Philadelphia-based Acme Supermarkets, this game represented promoters' attempts to capitalize on an unprecedented boom in supermarket expansion driven by postwar suburban development. In 1946 supermarkets accounted for only 3% of the total number of grocery stores in the U.S., although they generated 28% of all grocery sales in the nation. By 1954 the supermarket still represented only 5% of all grocery stores, but its sales had jumped to 48% of the total sales volume. As supermarket revenues grew, so did efforts to advertise the stores. Popular magazines promoted this game while encouraging players to buy products at the real store. While the Acme Check-Out Game never exactly caught on, other promotional tie-in games became a staple of advertising.