Branded products are a mainstay of our culture. From bottled water and phones to luxury cars and jeans, we are surrounded by corporate logos and stylish graphics designed to capture our attention and our loyalty.

Branding isn’t about to go out of style any time soon, either. Step into an Apple store anywhere in the world and you’ll see how effective branding can create an almost cult-like status for products and the companies that make them.

Of course, USB flash drives are a highly popular choice for branding. What’s more, these drives can also save businesses, college students, project teams and other drive owners time and money in a surprising number of ways.

For example, it’s terribly easy to get USB flash drives mixed up, especially when working in project teams or on assignments with others. At first glance, the mix up doesn’t seem like a big deal since USB flash drives are so affordable, especially when compared to hard drives and laptops.

While the loss of the drive itself isn’t costly, the loss of the data it contains can be quite costly. Not only does the data have value, but there’s the time it took to create it. The loss of a drive can mean hours of additional labour to recreate the files that have gone missing.

One of the ways to prevent this from happening is to have USB flash drives designed for specific projects, work groups, college courses or programs. That way, the drives won’t get lost in the sea of other drives. The unique colour scheme, logo, design or style of USB flash drive can instantly identify it, at least within a specific work group. From there, it doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to find out whose drive it is. A quick look at the data, file structure or even the name of the USB flash drive can be telling. For example, a drive can be set up to mount as “Bob’s Project” or “Sarah’s Transfer Files”. Anyone within the work group can quickly identify the owner of the USB flash drive.

If specific project files are being shared, you can also create a series of branded USB flash drives that are colour coded or have specific project titles on it. Relevant titles or colours can be apportioned to each USB flash drive, so each work group has its own identification. For example, a particular project within the company can have a single style of USB flash drive. For the marketing team, the colour is blue, for production it is red, for management it is green and shipping has yellow. The overall design ties them all together, but it’s easy to see the type of data contained on it and the group it belongs to by colour alone.

Of course, every expense in the corporate world is being examined these days and storage devices are no different. While the cost of flash drive memory is slightly greater than a traditional hard drive, the advantage of USB flash drives is that they are virtually indestructible, something the more delicate hard drives can’t claim, due to their moving parts. Drop a hard drive and it’s toast. A USB flash drive can survive just about anything an employee, college student or customer can dish out. Fashionable, functional and affordable, branded USB flash drives are the perfect answer for sharing files in work groups, project teams and college classrooms.

Arguably one of the most convenient ways to transport and transfer information around campus, USB flash drives have become a staple of K-12 schools, colleges and universities around the world.

With good reason, too. Lightweight and inexpensive yet extremely powerful, these flash drives allow students and educators to move vast amounts of data quickly and efficiently.

But a USB flash drive can also be used by the institution to recruit prospects, since they show that the school, college or university is technologically savvy and forward thinking. The drive can be preloaded with the school’s course catalog, video tours, applications and links to financial aid, housing and other important resources a student may need.

Faculty can use the drives to download lesson materials and upload homework, without the need to waste paper. As any school teacher knows, supplies are always in short supply and USB flash drives can actually save teachers money since they can be reused year after year. Try to do that with regular paper!

Finally, USB flash drives are a terrific way for institutions to brand themselves. A logo or message printed on the drive’s surface can improve school spirit, extend marketing efforts and support fundraising efforts. They can also be an added revenue stream, if you sell them in the school store branded with, say, “Class of 2009” or “Class of 2010” printed or engraved on it. You can even sell different models and sizes of drives to broaden your offerings of USB flash drives to those who want to show their sense of style or fashion.

Whether you’re a student, faculty member or administrator, USB flash drives are a great way to share information and data quickly, efficiently and securely

The new university year is starting soon and the Freshers are slowly filtering in to your city. However, as soon as they are settled in, the task to fill next year’s places will begin, to attract the brightest, hardest working students. It’s not too long before we’ll be seeing open days, information packs and talks at 6th Forms across the country.

Why not add an extra little gift into your presentations though? Don’t send them a 50 page catalogue that they will browse through on the bus before leaving on the seat, send them a USB stick instead, pre-loaded with all of your information. Your logo will always be in front of them, your catalogue always in their pocket.

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