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Posts Tagged ‘flash’

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In the immortal words of Vernon Kay…”Our survey says…”

Monday, October 10th, 2011

OK, it wasn’t our survey but a recent survey undertaken by the BPMA (British Promotional Merchandise Association), which questioned businessmen and women about their behavioural trends, and preferences for different promotional gifts came up with some interesting findings.

As well as reinforcing the benefits that spend on promotional products deliver the survey also examined how people felt after being given a promotional item. The aim was to measure how such products affected the feelings, perceptions and the propensity to buy. Just a little more than half (56%) of those questioned said they felt more positive towards the brand/company and a very strong 79% said they were more likely to do business with the company in the future.

USB Flash Drives in Boxes

USB Flash Drives in Boxes

Interestingly the majority said they preferred to receive a promotional gift with a logo printed on it.

When it came to which promotional gifts people preferred to be given the clear winner was a USB stick which took 45% of the vote followed by a pen with 39% and a mug with 36%.

Usefulness is one of the main reasons for people retaining and using promotional merchandise and the majority of people (64%) found a USB sticks useful. The beauty of this is that repeated usage and perceptions of usefulness mean any brand printed on the product will get lots of positive exposure.

Promotional products also have a long term impact with around a quarter of all respondents able to recall the name/brand of the company that gave them the “gift” 12 months later – not something most other forms of advertising can claim.

Unsurprisingly given the results from the survey undertaken by the BPMA sales of USB memory sticks are rocketing at the moment. If you are in the market for your own printed or customised USB sticks then give the team at USB2U a call – they have been supplying USB sticks for nearly 10-years and are one of the most respected and trusted suppliers around.

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In the immortal words of Vernon Kay…”Our survey says…”

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Thunderbolt Flash Drives – Myth or Reality

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

Back in February Intel announced a new High Speed technology called Thunderbolt™. Thunderbolt supports data transfer speeds of up to 10GB per second, which means you could transfer a full-length HD movie between two devices running Thunderbolt in around 30 seconds!

Although Intel announced its Thunderbolt was a joint development with Apple so its no surprise that most of the new products launched by Apple since the announcement have included Thunderbolt. (new iMac, new Macbook Air, new Macbook Pro).

Considering that USB 3.0 is only just beginning to reach the market the announcement of Thunderbolt took many by surprise and raised doubts over what will emerge as the dominant standard for peripherals and data transfer – the thought of another VHS Vs Betamax tussle is not something the industry needs just now.

Thunderbolt Flash Drives

Thunderbolt Flash Drives

Whilst USB 3.0 products are backwards compatible with USB 2.0, Thunderbolt is completely different; different cables, different connectors and completely different protocol, so USB products, including USB flash drives will not work with Thunderbolt.

Here are a few basic facts to consider about Thunderbolt:

  • Thunderbolt I/O technology gives you two channels on the same connector with 10 Gbps of throughput in both directions.
  • Thunderbolt transfers data up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0, up to 12 times faster than with FireWire 800 and twice as fast as USB 3.0
  • A range of Thunderbolt storage peripherals are already available including storage products from Lacie (Lacie’s Little Big Disk)

Talk in the market is that Intel has so far failed to build support for USB 3.0 into any of its motherboard chipsets. If this is the case just where does this leave USB 3.0 and are we on the verge of seeing portable storage drives that use Thunderbolt technology?

To confuse matters further HP (the worlds largest producer of PC’s) has announced that it is sticking with USB 3.0 because it has wider support in the market. They’re not saying “no” to Thunderbolt just yet but instead they seem to be keeping a “watching brief” on it.

With the amount of influence Apple and Intel carry in the PC and tablet market at the moment you have to assume that at some stage a Thunderbolt Flash Drive is going to appear. Exactly when and at what cost is anyone’s guess but for now most people seem content with their standard USB 2.0 flash drives.

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Thunderbolt Flash Drives – Myth or Reality

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House Builders Boost Sales With Promotional USB Flash Drives

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

The last few years have been pretty torrid for the house-building sector over the past few years. The number of new houses started in March 2011* was 29,140 which sounds like a reasonable number but its 41% down from the peak reached in March 2007.

Although there has been a slight uplift in starts (and completions) over the last couple of months it’s still much too soon to get overly optimistic about an early recover in the housing market.

USB Sticks

USB Sticks

One of the challenges for any housing developer is keep their stock moving and the cash flow as healthy as possible. Buying the right development plots and building houses in a style that people want is of course fundamental but much of the challenge of getting the houses sold and sold quickly depends on the strength of the sales and marketing activity around any given development.

Getting prospective house buyers across the threshold of the show homes is incredibly important particularly in areas where there is lots of competition.  Social networking now plays a big part (or should play a big part) in the overall marketing strategy of any house building company – its an ideal way to interact with prospective buyers get details of new development and offers in front of an engaged audience – but beware it needs managing so that it does not get taken over by any aggrieved customers!

But what about the use of USB flash drives? Is there a place for promotional USB flash drives in any sales and marketing mix? Well, some housing developers clearly think so because they are now buying them with their brand and contact details printed on and then giving them away at strategic points in an effort to encourage more visitors to the show homes.

Before being handed out the flash drives are pre-loaded with lots of information on the development(s) including video clips, floor plans, site plans, special offers and links to their websites.

The beauty of handing out flash drives (albeit you need to be targeted) is that people can’t resist plugging them into their PC or Mac to find out what’s on them. They also tend to hang onto them for their own personal data storage so you get on-going brand exposure.

Handing out promotional USB flash drives in this speculative manner is not cheap but only the house builders can judge from any uplift in vists/sales if it’s a cost effective strategy.

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House Builders Boost Sales With Promotional USB Flash Drives

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Personalised USB Sticks Make Great School Leaving Gifts

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

Whether you’re leaving primary school to join the “big” school or leaving secondary school to start life at university it’s going to be emotional particularly if you’re leaving behind friends you’ve formed a strong bond with over the years you’ve been together.

It’s often just as tough on the teachers, particularly in smaller schools where they may have taught the same class of children for several years. The last day will often end in tears for the teachers as they dismiss their class for the last time and inevitably it will be a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows for the students as the reality of the “last day” sinks in. No matter how hard nosed you are or how much you convince yourself it doesn’t matter the last day at school will put you through the emotional mixer.

School USB Flash Drives

School USB Flash Drives

With the rise of social networking applications like Facebook and Twitter it’s now much easier than it was to keep in touch with your school friends as you move on to a new school or to start a new life outside of school but, it’s also nice to be able to celebrate your time at the school with some form of tangible gift.

Some schools and classes have latched onto the idea of personalised USB flash drives as the perfect leaving or

School USB wristbands

School USB wristbands

graduation gift. The flash drives can be printed or engraved with the school crest or name and details of the “Class of 2011” or anything that is appropriate. They can even be individually engraved with each student’s name!

The really clever bit (but it needs someone to organise it) is to gather lots of photographs and video clips (school trips, school plays, concerts etc.) of the class together with the class register, sports achievements, school awards etc. and get all of this pre-loaded onto the USB flash drives before they are given out.

As pretty much everyone has a PC these days, personalised USB flash drives crammed full with “memories” of the good times at school are a great idea. They’re not that expensive either and the lead-time to get them produced is only around 7-10 days (but allow a little more time if you want a name engraved or printed on each one).

So, if you are looking for a leaving gift with a difference then you might want to think about personalised USB flash drives.

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Personalised USB Sticks Make Great School Leaving Gifts

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From Potato Chips to Flash Memory Chips

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

USB flash drives printed with a company logo on them are proving popular with companies who have something new to say or announce. One of the reasons for their popularity is that its easy for companies to pre-load the flash drives with tons of information about their announcement.

They don’t necessarily replace printed press releases and product sheets entirely but they do give lots of scope to provide customers, partners and journalists with much more information in a format that is easy to carry and use.

The sort of information typically loaded on USB flash drives these days before they are handed out tends to include; video clips, media files, previews of TV or web banner adverts, user product reviews, executive briefings and loads more besides.

Most suppliers of branded and promotional USB flash drives offer a data pre-loading service and some will even throw in data-loading free of charge (subject to minimum order quantities and a maximum amount of data) so anyone thinking of loading data onto flash drives should shop around. You should only expect to pay for a data-load if it’s a last minute thing or you’ve got a particularly large amount of data you need loading!

All sorts of companies from the very large to small start-ups are now using USB flash drives to get their message out and to supplement other communication channels.

Printed USB Flash Drive

Printed USB Flash Drive

Tyrrells who make fantastic hand cooked English chips from locally sourced ingredients have recently undergone a bit of a makeover that included renaming their chips and calling them “crisps”. They’ve also launched a new website and have given their bags a bit of a “spruce up” – the results are fab – a bit like their crisps really!

If like Tyrrells you’ve got a fantastic product that you want to shout about you’re keen to let the world know about then you might also want to consider using a USB stick as part of your promotional or PR campaign. If you do then don’t forget to pre-load them with your data files before you hand them out!

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From Potato Chips to Flash Memory Chips

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Beware Cheap Promotional USB Flash Drives

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

If you’re in the market for some promotional USB flash drives then you’re likely to be shopping around and getting a few quotes from the numerous suppliers of flash drives that have sprung up over the last year or so.

Getting a few quotes for comparison purposes is exactly the right thing to do but the big challenge is how do you know when you get the prices back that you are really comparing “apples to apples”. On the face of you’d expect a 1GB USB flash drive from one supplier to be the same as a 1GB flash drive from another supplier but actually nothing could be further from the truth.

Within the promotional flash drive market the memory sticks supplied come in a wide range of grades and standards and unless you know what to ask for you could find that one supplier is quoting for USB flash drives that use top quality Grade A original flash whilst another (likely to be significantly cheaper) is quoting for USB flash drives that use Grade D cheap and cheerful “masked” or fake flash chips.

Of course when the printed and boxed USB flash drives arrive it’s incredibly difficult to tell whether the flash drives have been produced with Grade A or Grade D flash chips – they might look fantastic, the print job could be excellent and the packing might be exactly as you specified but how do you tell if you’ve been duped and supplied with inferior goods.

Ideally the time to deal with these questions is at the start of the procurement process by spelling out to the suppliers you approach exactly what you expect from your USB flash drives. If you need a high performance product that uses named original flash drive memory chips from companies like Samsung, Hynix or Micro then you need to specify this.

If you simply ask for a price for say 100 X 1GB USB flash drives then you leave it up to your supplier to interpret what standard of flash you either need or they can get away with quoting you for!

If you do end up with USB flash drives built around Grade D flash chips and cheap flash controllers then you can expect the following:

  • The flash drives are highly unlikely to have the amount of storage on them that you have purchased. In other words they will be something like a 512MB made to look like they are 1GB (masked) – when you insert them into the PC and check the “properties” of the flash drive they will appear as 1GB disks but if you try and load over 512MB onto the sticks and then take them out and re-insert them, then anything over say 500MB won’t appear.
  • The read/write speeds will be very slow which may be a problem if you are loading large amounts of data onto the drives before you hand them out to your customers.
  • The expected life (the number of read/write cycles) of the flash drives will be poor and the failure rate will be high.
  • The customer experience using them will be disappointing, they may not work, if they do work they will be slow and they won’t have the amount of space of the drive that they were expecting – not the sort of experience you want to associate with your brand.

So, when deciding whom to place your order for promotional USB flash drives with don’t just be lead price unless you do so in the full knowledge of the possible consequences. Ideally choose a company that has an establish pedigree and can point to lots of repeat business and will offer guarantees and warranties on their products that have some meaningful recourse.

Buying on price and price alone is an easy option but to do so is to ignore the complexities and risks of what should, on the face of it, be a simple and safe transaction.

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Beware Cheap Promotional USB Flash Drives

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Squeezing The Most From Your Promotional USB Flash Drive Budget

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Advertising and marketing budgets have been hit hard over the last couple of years and whilst there are glimmers of the economy recovering its still early days and consequentially purse strings are still pulled relatively tight. That said businesses can’t afford to stand still and the need to advertise and promote your business and products is still of paramount importance but, where hard cash is being spent its critical that you squeeze as much as possible from your budget.

When it comes to buying promotional USB flash drives there are several factors that you should consider because they will help you to get the best possible “bang for buck”:

  • Don’t pay for unnecessary memory – USB flash drives are available in a wide range of sizes starting from 32MB all the way up to 64GB. Popular USB flash drive sizes are 1Gb – 2GB and these are normally ample for any corporate gifts or promotional give-aways. If you buy USB flash drives larger than this then the costs start to rise quite substantially. Similarly if you buy flash drives smaller than 1GB the price reduction is relatively small but more importantly the likelihood of the flash drive being used on an on-going basis is dramatically reduced. Without on-going use you don’t get the benefit of your brand being continually recalled or promoted.
  • Reduce the number of colours you want printed – Ink costs and each colour printed has a set-up cost associated
    Barclays USB Flash Drives

    Barclays USB Flash Drives

    with it. Whilst some suppliers might absorb some of these costs to secure your business its unlikely that they’ll swallow all of them. If you have a complex logo or a logo with 4 or more colours see if you can simplify it. Its not unusual for there to be various “complex” and “simple” versions of a company logo available because good designers understand that a logo will be used in a variety of way and so they plan ahead accordingly.

  • Plan ahead and order early – The vast majority of USB flash drives that are printed up with a company brand or logo are manufactured to order from factories in China. Despite the distances involved and the freight costs associated with shipping flash drives around the world it is still considerably cheaper to get flash drives this way. If you order flash drives at the last minute then you’ll pay a premium to get them printed locally and you’ll have far less choice in terms of memory size and style of memory stick.
  • Only buy gift boxes if you really need them – this speaks for itself but its worth checking that any price you are quoted does not include a charge for gift boxes (unless you want them). Most branded USB flash drives will come in individual “poly” bags or they’ll be in a free plain white box.
  • Pre-load any data during the manufacturing process – one of the best ways to offset the cost of buying branded USB flash drives is to pre-load them with your company sales brochures, media files, presentation files and so on – saving this data onto the flash drive means you won’t have to go to the expense of getting them printed. The trick though is to make sure you have the data ready early so that it can be loaded onto the flash drive at the point of manufacture (this is usually free). If you are late supplying your data then expect to pay a fee for it to be loaded post manufacture.
  • Get several quotes before ordering – we all have our own favourite or “preferred” supplier(s) but when you’re sourcing branded USB flash drives its definitely worth shopping around and getting several quotes. If you do choose a new supplier make sure you get a firm quote in writing, read any associated T & C’s and payment terms and make sure the price is a fully inclusive price. In particular watch out for print set up, print origination charges and high delivery charges!
  • Buying the cheapest USB flash drives can end up costly in the long run – before you just accept the cheapest price you are quoted its best to make sure you are comparing “apples with apples”. Some unscrupulous vendors will supply graded or re-cycled flash chips unless you specify “new”. Whilst most of these will work you can expect a much higher failure rate and much slower performance – not exactly what you want if you’re printing your brand on them! Choose your vendor carefully, check out their testimonials and if you’re at all concerned take references.
  • Avoid buying your USB flash drives during the peak demand periods – there are a couple of times of the year (every year) when the price of flash rockets and this has a knock on effect on the price of USB flash drives. The times to avoid if at all possible include the early run up to Christmas (late September and October) when many large manufacturers buy up flash chips for their Christmas manufacturing schedules and the time around Chinese New Year when there is a general scarcity in the market.
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Squeezing The Most From Your Promotional USB Flash Drive Budget

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USB Pens – Is The Art Of Writing With A Pen Dead

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

With the phenomenal growth in the use of email, texts, smart phones, blogs, and other PC and technology orientated gadgets these days is it finally time to consign the pen to the dustbin.

Its not just “old fashioned” letter writing that has taken a huge hit. Simple, everyday things we used to use a pen for have are either in decline or have disappeared altogether. Consider the following:

  • We no longer use a pen to sign credit card vouchers in store because paper vouchers have now been replaced with a Chip & PIN system.
  • Hand written cheques are in terminal decline and the banks are keen to withdraw them altogether sighting alternatives like debit and credit cards, on-line backing and ATM’s as replacements
  • Greeting cards can now be sent virtually over the web albeit they never seem quite as personal as a hand written card.
  • Phone numbers are exchanged over networks and directly from phone to phone rather than being scribbled down and entered into a diary
  • The emergence of small portable PC tablets and products like the iPad will eventually replace the notepad in meetings at work and ultimately at school.
  • Deliver drivers and the postman now typically ask for an electronic signature onto a hand-held terminal rather than onto a paper sheet with a conventional pen.

These are just a few examples of how the use of the pen is declining in our everyday life. But, the reality is that pens are going to be with us for many years to come and realistically whilst the use of pens is in decline many of us still love the personal expression and simple pleasure of using a pen to write with. There are also circumstances where there is simply no substitute for pen and paper!

USB Pens

USB Pens

Pens have long been a favourite product within the promotional industry primarily because they are relatively cheap and they’re handy to have. But, even this product has been caught up with the onward march of technology. Today rather than give away a standard pen or perhaps a fountain pen many companies instead prefer to give-away USB pens. These are hybrid products that still look and function like a pen but they double up as a USB memory stick. Inside the barrel of the pen is a USB connector and a flash memory chip. This allows the USB pen to carry literally thousands of documents and images just like a conventional USB memory stick.

The USB pen is however likely to be just another small interim step on the path to the ultimate demise of the pen as we know it today.

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USB Pens – Is The Art Of Writing With A Pen Dead

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Got A Product Launch – Make An Impact With A Custom USB Flash Drive

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

If you’ve got a product launch coming up and you need to make a bit of a splash about it then, in addition to all of the regular “fanfare” activities that you’re no doubt planning, its worthwhile considering supporting your product launch with a fully customised USB flash drive.

Custom USB

Custom USB

One of the primary objectives of any product launch event has got to be getting your audience informed, excited and enthused about your company and your product(s). You want them to go away from your event as advocates; you want them to write positive articles about the product, to post articles on their blogs and to use social networking sites to create plenty of “chatter” about what they’ve seen and what you’re launching.

Typically at any launch event there’ll be plenty of new information to disseminate and then distribute. You’ll have executives and product managers briefed, primed, and well rehearsed to deliver a knock out pitch, your Q & A’s will have been developed and honed to perfection and the venue carefully chosen to create the right ambience and put your audience in the right frame of mind.

With all of this attention to detail don’t forget that at the end of it all when the lights go up and the audience goes to leave you want them to have at hand all of the information on your new product or service. Loading them up with piles of brochures, copies of FAQ’s, technical sheets is unlikely to be popular. You could of course email this information out after the event or post it onto a web site or you could do something a little more interesting and unusual and pre-load

Custom Flash Drive

Custom Flash Drive

all of this information onto a customised (bespoke) USB flash drive.

A Custom USB Flash drive can be manufactured in the shape of your new product or designed to look like your product brand. It will be unique to you and your company, it will function just like any normal USB flash drive and done well it really grab people attention. In addition to carrying your product launch information its highly likely that the flash drive will get used by the recipient after the event to save and carry their own data around. This on-going usage of the flash drive all adds to the viral effect that you need to underpin your launch.

Bear in mind that if you do order custom USB flash drives that you need to allow around 3-4 weeks for the design and production of the flash drives. The data-loading can be done during the manufacturing process or any time right up to the event itself.

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Got A Product Launch – Make An Impact With A Custom USB Flash Drive

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Exactly What Is A USB Flash Drive

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Being in the industry we tend to forget that not everyone is familiar with exactly what a USB Flash Drive is, what it’s used for and why they are becoming increasing popular. So here’s our basic guide to what a USB Flash Drive is:

USB Flash drives (also known as USB memory sticks, USB pen drives or USB thumb drives) were first commercially available in the year 2000. IBM launched them under the brand name “DiskOnKey” and they were introduced as a replacement for the floppy disc. By today’s standard the first USB flash drives had a tiny 8MB of storage capacity but even this was 4 times the amount of data that could be stored on a floppy disk.

The portability of USB flash drives and the ability to carry your data around on a key ring or lanyard and simply plug it into a PC via a USB port meant they became very popular very quickly. Essentially a USB flash drive is a just a way of storing data and storing it on something that is lightweight, easy to carry, easy to use and works on all PC and Mac platforms.

USB Flash Drive

USB Flash Drive

Over time larger storage capacities became available and the data transfer speeds increased to support the movement of larger amounts of information. Today typical USB flash drives are 2GB to 4GB but drives up to a whopping 64GB are now making their way into the market. A 64GB flash drive holds 8,000 times more data than the 8MB version first introduced in 2000!!

Inside every USB flash drive is a small printed circuit board (controller chip) that is connected to a flash memory module (the piece on which the data is stored). These two elements are then encased in an outer shell that is typically made of plastic, metal or more recently wood/bamboo.

The USB connector that protrudes out of the end of a flash drive is simply inserted into any PC or Mac and then the storage space on the USB flash drive is accessible and data can to saved to/from the drive. USB flash drives don’t need batteries because they draw all the power they need to work from the USB port they are plugged into.

Today USB flash drives are very popular with companies because they can print their logo or brand onto the outside casing of the flash drive and give them away at trade shows, conference, exhibitions and so on. With the large amount of storage space now available on entry level versions of the flash drive companies are also pre-loading their sales brochures and other marketing material onto the memory of the flash drive – this not only saves them printing and transportation costs but it’s a really effective way of distributing large amounts of data and information about their company.

People that are given branded flash drives (flash drives printed with a company logo on) are typically delighted to receive them because they have a high perceived value and because they can use they to save and transport their own data around.

USB2U is one of the longest established suppliers of USB flash drives in the UK. Established in 2002 shortly after the introduction of flash drives USB2U and its sister company USBNow have supplied millions of USB flash drives to thousands and thousands of customers. If you are looking for a trusted supplier of USB memory sticks, USB thumb drives or USB pen drives then get in touch with USB2U today.

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Exactly What Is A USB Flash Drive

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