Lighting & Studio

Branded Flash Drives – Certainly No Flash In The Pan

When something is described as being a “flash in the pan” its generally considered to be a failure or something that you assumed would offer some value but let you down when it came to the crunch. Believed to have derived from a failure of gunpowder charges in flintlock muskets (the “pan” in the musket held the gunpowder and if it failed to ignite and discharge the round it was described as a “flash in the pan”. 

Branded and Promotional Flash Drives certainly don’t fall into this category. In fact, flash drives (also called memory sticks, USB pen drives and thumb drives) are on set to become one of the best selling promotional products of recent times. Why? Well, these humble little drives deliver on so many levels: 

Fantastic Brand Ambassador – Flash drives carry print incredibly well and can even be produced in a 3-D representation of your brand or product. The print quality achievable today by the factories that produce the flash drives is superb with many drives now able to support photo realistic printing. So, no matter how complex a logo or brand is, it can be reproduced to a very high standard.

High Perceived Value – Anyone given a flash drive is immediately going to recognise the worth of what they have been given and will attach a high perceived value to the item. By association this “value” transfers to any brand printed on the drive and engenders a feeling of gratitude and satisfaction.

Easy Distribution of Sales Data and Files – unlike inert promotional products such as umbrellas, mugs, caps etc. flash drives give you the capability to pre-load your sales material onto the flash drive. This is an incredibly powerful capability because not only can you distribute easily and cheaply all of your brochures, price lists, presentation slides but you can also include media files and applications that start automatically as soon as the flash drive is inserted in any USB port on a PC.

Small and Portable – Memory sticks have never been the largest of products but even so the current generation are roughly 25% smaller than they were a couple of years ago. This is good news not just in terms of portability for anyone that is given a promotional flash drive but also for any company having to transport flash drives to a show or event. Compare the shipping overhead of transporting 1,000 small flash drives around compared to 1,000 umbrellas or mugs.

High levels of repeat usage – The fact that flash drives are very popular for saving data to and carry files around means they are handy for use at work, school and home. As a consequence they get high levels of repeated use and with this there is repeated brand exposure.

Relatively inexpensive – Whilst they might be a little more money than a mug, a keyring or a cap they are still relatively inexpensive and the costs can be kept low by ordering smaller memory sizes. Be careful you don’t go too low though because its important if you want to give the recipient enough memory storage and motivation to use the flash drive. When you factor in the costs you can offset on transport, printing of brochures and sales literature and combine this with the benefits outlined above branded flash drives more than stack up in terms of cost vs benefit.

About the Author

Phil is part of the team at USB2U. Launched in 2002 USB2U has now establised iteself as one of the leading supplier of branded flash drives and custom USB memory sticks in the UK. USB2U offer a free design and mock up service couple with great prices and outstanding customer support. Contact us today for a quote. We’d love to hear from you.

when using off camera flash and reflective umbrella why am I getting coloured circles on the back ground?

Hi yesterday I did some photos and I didn’t get any coloured circles on the back of my black muslin. Today Im still using the same back ground and I have the circles on the black muslin. I have no idea why or what im doing wrong is it possible that the buttons that light up on the flash is reflecting the colours in to the umbrella and bouncing the lights back. Another thing getting the light right on someones face is there a example about where to position it because today I dont seem to be getting any where near
There is no camera clubs where I live and the college thats near us the course they do theres only school leavers a bit young

A sample would be good as were only guessing without one.

The light causing the circles has to be coming from the main flash reflecting off something, the lights on the back of the flash are tiny by comparison with the flash even on minimum power.

The problem with muslin backgrounds is that light can travel through them, bounce of whatever behind then back through the muslin and into your camera. Is there anything reflective (mirrors, ornaments etc) behind the muslin? I’m guessing here.

You really need to join a club, it’s so much easier to have an experienced photographer right there with you who can see what your doing, all the problems you seem to be having will just go away or not happen at all.

As for getting the light right on someones face Google ‘Rembrandt lighting’, this lighting setup is the basis for so many other techniques.

Chris