USB
Flash Drives - The New Standard in Portable Storage and
Advertising Specialties
Ed
Lazaruk, BestFlashDrives.com
May 1, 2007
"Flash drives", "thumb drives", "pen
drive", "memory sticks", "jump
drives", "USB drives", and most recently
"smart drives"
- known by many names these
little devices have revolutionized the way we store and
transport data. Gone are the days of cumbersome CD or DVD
burning. Also gone are the days of unappreciated and
ineffective promotional products.
First
introduced four years ago, USB flash drives started to really catch on in
late 2004. Credit Hollywood for jump-starting the
trend when it cast a flash drive in a pivotal role between Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise in
the movie "Collateral". Even without a speaking
role, the little blinking device briefly stole the show in a
suspenseful scene, becoming an overnight sensation in
computing.
Today USB
flash drives are the number one portable storage media, with 2006
sales of 150 million and sales of 340 million units predicted by 2008,
according to Web-Feet Research.
And for
good reason. Flash drives can be loaded with data much
faster than CD's or DVD's, and they also allow for easy deletion and re-loading of
data, again and again, without degrading the memory chip quality.
Try that with a re-writeable CD.
With
storage capacities all the way up to 8 Gig, and life expectancy of over 10
years (twice that of a computer hard drive), flash drives are
ideal not only for transporting data, but also for backing it up.
Many computer users use several flash drives to back up and
organize their files - one flash drive for photos, one (or more)
for music, one for work files, etc.
For
marketing executives on the hunt for a promotional item with great
branding potential, the flash drive is a prayer answered.
Finally, a promotional product that is both fun and practical,
universally popular among all demographics, lightweight and
compact enough to be mailed or included in an in-pack promo, and
works for years providing thousands of impressions for their
brand.
Initially
flash drives hit the promotional/premiums market as custom-printed
memory sticks - straight sticks with a company's logo pad printed
on one or two sides. This has evolved into a market with
tens or even hundreds of creative shapes and sizes, and even
completely custom shapes. Today, the shape of a flash drive
is limited only by the imagination.
While the
object itself makes for great branding, the file storage inside
opens up all kinds of marketing possibilities. Sales
literature, product demo videos, software, or any other
media/advertising can all be pre-loaded on flash drives before
giving to customers, salespeople, distributors, etc.
With new "smart drive" technology, flash drives will be
used in more and more creative ways.
As popular
as flash drives already are today, they're on a growth path that's
only begun, probably on their way to becoming the most ubiquitous product
in the promotional marketplace.
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