USB Flip Card Mark II

At USB2U we sell one of the widest ranges of USB flash drives on the market.  Some memory sticks, like the Rodeo flash drive have an extra quality look to them, other flash drives like the bottle opener USB are made to be multi-functional and some flash drives like the Battery USB try to disguise themselves as other things.  However, a few USBs are quite bulky and couldn’t be comfortably carried around all the time.  The Credit Card USB product range is not only functional and has a great surface for printing but they also allow very for easy transportation.  At 2mm thick the credit cards can comfortably slot into a wallet, which makes them easy to take with you wherever you go.

The Credit Card USB range come in four different styles, Flip Mark I, Flip Mark II, Rotate and the Slide Metal Card.  The cards functionalities differ slightly however, they all have a large area that allows for complete customised printing.  The Flip Mark I, Flip Mark II and Rotate cards can have print on the complete surface area of the front and back which is great for images and complicated logos.  Despite the size the cards are availablefrom the smallest memory size of 512MB up to the largest size of 16GB.

The impact of the large printing area and embossing (on the Slide Metal Card) available on the flash drives make them a great promotional tool.  The functionality of the USB Credit Cards means that they can be used in every day life without having to be worn with a lanyard around the neck.  To find out more about the USB Credit Card Flash Drives see the product page.

It’s the sort of trick you see Apple to pull with their ultra thin Mac Book Air but given the premium prices Apple charge it’s no surprise. These wafer thin credit card USB flash drives on the other hand are only a few pounds and they can create the same sort of “wow” when given away as part of any company sales and marketing campaign. 

Credit Card USB with Wallet

Don’t think for a minute that by choosing a USB credit card to be branded with your company logo that you sacrifice speed and performance when compared to a standard style USB flash drive. These wafer style USB cards are available from 512MB all the way up to 16GB so there is tons of space on them to pre-load even the largest of files, company brochures or movie clips. 

Apart from their ultra thin shape and portability another major advantage these USB cards have over regular USB flash drives is the amount of space you can print on. The cards are exactly the same size as a regular credit card and the entire space on both sides can be printed with whatever image, logo, strap line or photo you want. The cards also support full colour “photo quality” print so there’s certainly no compromise on the overall look of the finished product. 

Most people already have a wallet or purse designed to carry bank cards that these USB cards will slip right into or, you can supply them with their own little leather wallet  – these can also be embossed with a company brand or logo for extra impact. 

usb credit cards

Finally, if you’re thinking of mailing out your USB sticks then the credit card versions ought to be top of your shopping list for no other reason than they are thin enough to slip into a standard envelope and be posted using “Letter Post: rather than “Packet Post”. Given the latest round of price increases imposed by the Royal Mail in the UK this is a significant benefit and these cost savings alone are typically much more than any premium you might pay for a credit card USB flash drive compared to any of the standard models.

Everyone is pretty familiar with regular USB flash drives and most will have used one or more at school, university or in their job but not everyone appreciates you can now buy USB flash drives in the shape of a credit card.

USB Credit Cards

To be fair credit card shaped flash drives are not new, they’ve been around for a good number of years but very few were purchased because the early versions were very thick and a bit ugly. With the continued miniaturisation of technology the latest generation of credit cards USB sticks are a mere 2mm thick making them only marginally “fatter” than a standard bank card.

At this thickness these cards now slot comfortably into wallets, purses and bags that are designed to carry standard

USB Cards

bank cards so they are incredibly easy to carry and to use. So, if you decide to use a USB credit cards printed with your brand or logo on then there is a strong likelihood these cards will be carried around by the recipient in their wallet or purse – a fantastic place to get your brand and a great way to continually reinforce your key sales messages.

Of course one of the other major benefits of using a credit card shaped USB flash drive rather than a standard “stick” is the much larger print area you have to work with. Printing a logo, a strap line, a phone number and a website address on a standard rectangular flash drive is almost impossible (even when you print on both side of the drive). Even if you do get all of these components printed on the stick they’ll be so small that you’d need a magnifying glass to read them comfortably!

With USB credit cards there is no such problem meaning you can be a creative, as you like. The flat surface of the cards means you can even reproduce complex images with tints and gradients – effectively you can produce photo quality printing.

A further benefit of these cards is that just like any standard flash drive you can pre-load them with lots of data. It’s not unusual for companies that use them to load onto them before they are given out things like sales brochures (PDFs), price lists, technical support documents, media files, video clips and links to web sites. If you get this information ready when you order your credit card flash drives then typically the data can be loaded for you free of charge. It’ll also save you the hassle (not to be underestimated) of loading the data yourself.

Customised USB Credit Cards (printed) are growing in popularity and look set to challenge some of the more traditional designs for top spot in the promotional sector this year.

So, whilst you could achieve broadly the same overall effect the cards were typically a disappointment when they arrived not least because they were too thick to fit into most people’s wallets or purses! The latest version of the cards are a mere 2mm thick and whilst this is still thicker than the ISO standard of a regular card (0.75mm) they are now thin enough to comfortably fit into a wallet.

USB Credit Card Flash Drives

Continued improvements in the miniaturisation of components will continue to reduce the cards thickness but given the card has to have a physical connector that will push into a standard USB port we’re pretty much at the optimum thickness already.

The real benefit of USB flash drives in the shape of a bankcard or credit card is:

• The amount of space available to print onto is huge relative to a standard “rectangular” flash drive or pen drive. This means that a USB Credit Card flash drive can easily accommodate complex images and these images can be reproduced in a high-quality, photo realistic format. So, if you have lots of information like a website address, a phone number, a strap line and a couple of graphics then credit card USB flash drives are a sensible option.
• They’re a shape that is universally recognised around the world and pretty much everyone is used to carrying cards of this type in a wallet, purse, bag or organiser.
• They’re ideal for a physical Direct Mail campaign because they won’t increase the mail pack size beyond that charged for standard 1^st class post.
• If they are stored in a wallet or purse (which is what you would expect) then they and your brand is going to get lots of on-going exposure.

USB Credit Card Flash Drives are a little more expensive than standard drives but not excessively so but they do offer significant benefits over standard flash drives and if you’ve got a large or complex logo they can be the only option worth considering.

USB Credit Card Mailer Packs

When you consider that these USB credit cards contain a USB connector (to allow you to plug it into your PC’s USB port), a flash memory module (onto which the data is stored) and a flash memory controller chip (the brains of the unit) it just demonstrates how far miniaturisation has come over recent years.

USB Credit Card Pack

Unlike standard USB flash drives that tend to be rectangular “blocks” the credit card version can be slipped easily and discretely into a wallet or bag. Not only that but the cards open up all sorts of exciting branding and printing options that are simply not achievable on a standard USB flash drive because of the limited amount of space onto which you can print.

Available in a range of different styles (they’re all the same shape and size but there are different ways in which the USB connector is “revealed” from the credit card body) they come in memory sizes starting from 1GB all the way up to 16GB. Cost wise they are a little more than standard USB flash drives but not much more than you might think and if you have a complex logo or you want to include a strap line that’s readable when printed (difficult on a standard USB drive) then USB credit cards are definitely the way to go.

There are also a number of different packaging and presentation options available with the USB credit card including boxes, leather wallets and mailer packs where the USB card is supplied inside a custom pack. The beauty of these custom packs (or to be fair any of the credit card packaging options) is that they are great for mailing campaigns. If you are going to send them out in the post the thinness of the cards means you can still post them using “regular” 1^st class or 2^nd class postage rates whereas standard “rectangular” flash drives are typically too thick to be treated as “Letter Post” so the cost of distribution goes up significantly. In fact any small incremental cost to buy a credit card USB is more than offset by postage savings.

USB Credit Card Wallet

But, its not just the mailing cost savings and the larger print area that makes the USB cards a winner. The cards are new, exciting and different and they make a real impact when handing out or used in mail shots. Given one of the primary objects of using them, as a promotional tool is to build a strong affinity to your brand this is exactly the reaction you need from any promotional item or “gift”

These early generation USB memory sticks offered very limited memory storage capacity compared to the versions we take for granted today; 16MB and 32MB were the most commonly used memory sizes compared to 1GB to 4GB today. This is a huge increase in the amount of storage on offer for relatively little money but equally striking is the way in which the designs and styles on offer have changed.

First generation USB flash drives were typically large rectangular lumps of plastic that were “functional” rather than developed to win any design awards. But, as companies started to use them to promote their business by printing logo’s and brands onto them more effort was put into the aesthetics to underpin this burgeoning side of the USB flash market.

From a small fledgling business the promotional and branded USB memory sticks market has flourished into a huge global phenomena with millions of promotional USB flash drives produced and printed every month. Today USB flash drives are used to promote, reward, incentivise, disseminate information or to simply say “thank you”. They are incredibly popular amongst companies exhibiting at trade shows, fairs and conferences or to support new product launches.

As you might expect the manufacturers that design, develop and produce the branded USB flash drives are constantly competing with each other to bring new concepts and designs to the market in an on-going effort drive the market forward and to respond to the demand from the market for more stylish and innovative products. Over the past couple of years this has seen the introduction of the USB Key (flash drives in the shape of a key), leather USB flash drives, lanyard USB Flash Drives and more recently a range of brushed aluminium Credit Card USB that are only 2mm thick!

Credit Card USB - Flip

The Credit Card USB flash drives have been incredibly well received for a number of factors:

1. At only 2mm thick and with the same dimensions as a standard “credit card”, bank card or ATM card they fit neatly into any wallet or bag designed to accommodate standard bank cards. A branded USB credit card that has “share of wallet” with other notable financial brands is no bad thing either!
2. The flat surfaces of the card allow for the printing of large and complex designs that could not be printed on regular shaped USB drives
3. USB credit cards look and feel more expensive than regular USB flash drives and just the aesthetics drive demand.

If you’re thinking of buying branded USB memory sticks for your business they its worth thinking about the Credit Card models that are now available.

In fact these incredibly useful gadgets can be used in many many ways including but not limited to:

• On-pack sales promotions
• Competition prizes
• Trade show “give-aways”
• Press Launches (and lunches)
• Product Launches
• Staff rewards and incentives
• Customer mailers
• Re-seller and partner fairs

The most popular style or shape of branded memory stick used for these activities tend to be “stick” shaped (not as in a stick from a tree but small, rectangular shaped flash “sticks”) but there are other options!

One of the key trends in 2010 is expected to be the move to a bespoke or truly custom shape that is unique to the customer using it. Examples would include custom USB disks in the shape of a car or truck to support the launch of a new vehicle or perhaps in the shape of a company logo or brand. Any 2-D or 3-D shape is now possible and bespoke memory sticks really do up the ante in terms of brand support, brand building and product recall.

But, custom memory sticks are not for everyone. If you are looking for something a little different, a little more sophisticated with the scope to support a complex logo or design then you might consider a branded credit card USB. These come in a variety of styles and types but they all adhere to the basic “form factor” of a credit card. Not only do they support a full colour, photo effect print but they can also be supplied in a complementary wallet or case. Costing just a little more than a standard branded memory stick they are certainly worthy of consideration particularly if your target audience is ABC1.

The small additional cost is worth it in terms of the visual impact and much greater perceived value. If you are interested then give us a ring or fill out the on-line enquiry form and we’ll get back to you with a tailored quotation. We also offer a free design and mock-up service to help you visualise the end product.