Keeping Up with the Times
I was in the market for a flash drive this week and came across a compelling example of a company keeping its brand contemporary with the culture. The idea is brilliant, but I'm not sure I'd have ever come up with it as anything other than a punch line.
The Swiss Army Flash Drive comes in different sizes of memory (up to 2 gigs) and with various attachments. This one has a gig and comes with the following features:
* USB-Memory with 1 GB memory stick
* Blade
* Nail file with screwdriver
* Scissors
* Key ring
* LED mini light
* Retractable ball point pen
(I don't see the ball point pen, but that description is directly from the Website.)
If you'd rather just have the light, they can accommodate you. A different finish on the case? No problem. You like the idea of high tech but don't need a flash drive? How about a Swiss Army MP3 player? Take a look at all the Swiss Army data storage products.
But be careful--there's a competitor out there that's easy to confuse with Victorinox, the Swiss Army Knife company. That's Swiss+Tech, which also offers flash drives that come with multipurpose tools. As near as I can tell, though, those tools are detachable from the flash drives, so the cool factor is far, far lower. Anybody can package a flash drive with some sort of tool. It's making it all into a single piece that makes it truly a winning product.
posted by Doug @ 11:51 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
They sell those at Radio Shack right now. It is a cool idea, but I wonder how many they will really sell.
The ballpoint pen is right next to the LED light, isn't it?
You're absolutely right, Jim. The shadows are such that I thought there was some sort of hole for a hook or something on that attachment, but not only is it solid, it's a ballpoint pen. Ain't technology marvelous?
The pen is the little silver bit sticking out in the top right.
I got one of these as a speaker's gift for speaking at a seminar a couple of weeks ago. It's cute. What's really interesting is that it was late in coming. The chair of the seminar ordered modified versions of these for the speakers. They came in unmodified, and he had to send them back.
So what was the modification?
He asked for them to come without the knife blade or the scissors -- because in these post-9/11 times, I doubt you could get this thing on an airplane. In fact, I'm somewhat incredulous that I'll be able to get even my unbladed version on an airplane, simply because it looks like a knife. I'll have to try next time I fly.
That's a good point, Jason. They've recently revised the rules for airport security, and I thought they were allowing penknives, but they're still not allowing anything more than plastic or rounded butter knives, so you couldn't carry it on a plane (scissors with blades up to four inches, however, are now allowed in the cabin). Of course, you could always put it penknife in your checked bag. You shouldn't have much trouble with the unbladed version in the cabin of the plane, though. Not too long ago, I was carrying a corkscrew in my carry on, and after they checked to make sure it didn't also have a blade, they let me go right through.
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