To Brand or Not To Brand – The eternal USB question

There are real benefits in printing your company brand or logo on a USB memory stick particularly if the memory stick is given away as part of a wider marketing and advertising campaign.

Similarly if you are loading data and files onto a memory sticks for say a press launch or conference then it makes sense to add your logo (or the events logo) to the front of the memory stick. After all why wouldn’t you put your brand on the stick because the additional cost is minimal and it’s a great way to push your brand into the market.

Branded USB memory sticks are always well received and have a perceived value which is often well in excess of their actual worth. For the recipient there is generally an acknowledgement that they’ve been given something of value, something that suggests you appreciate them and their business. It’s akin to being given a “thank you” for attending, or for participating or just stopping by their stand at an exhibition.

This notion of value and appreciation transfers vicariously with the handing over of the branded USB memory stick and is likely to stay with the recipient far longer than any sales brochure or printed copy of a PowerPoint presentation.

By using a fully customised USB memory stick that is manufactured to represent your brand, your brand values or a particular product you can extend the association with your company further still and increase the perceived value. By injecting a little humour into a custom USB stick it can become a talking point and work well at driving up brand recognition.

But some companies are now abandoning branded memory sticks in favour of plain, discrete, no frills memory sticks. Typically this is where the memory stick is being given out to employees and the company in question is a large bank or firm of lawyers or auditors.

The move away from branded memory sticks by companies of this profile is driven by fear. They fear that employees brandishing a memory stick with their company logo on might be targeted and the stick stolen to recover confidential and/or valuable information. Similar fears exist over the loss of such branded memory sticks by staff, particularly where no password or encryption of the data has been used.

Whilst these fears are understandable and its right to be cautious there is no denying that branded USB memory sticks used for the right activity are here to stay and are a key and growing part of many companies marketing and advertising activities.

Where confidential information is being loaded onto the USB Memory stick it is possible to protect the data using military strength technology. The incremental cost is marginal and its use is likely to grow as more and more memory sticks wash into the market.