CD & DVD Business Cards and Mini CD
If you’ve Googled CD Business Card, Business Card Sized CD, Mini DVD, 3 inch CD, or shaped CD and DVD, I’m hoping you find this post. We’re going to shed some light on this.
These optical media pieces are ideal for compact supplement to an actual business card. They’re simply just small discs. They demand attention, and they’re cool. I wanted to give a few interesting examples of business card sized CD-Roms and CD-R, as well as Mini (3 inch in diameter) CD-R and CD Rom and DVD, and what some of the drawbacks are. When we consult with clients, there’s a few things to take into consideration if thinking about using them.
Business Card Sized CD-Rom/CD-R/DVD-Rom/DVD-R are the most compact disc media pieces that you can use. That’s the idea. They don’t lug around like traditional disc media because they are compact almost like credit cards. They have a higher retention rate or user rate than a standard CD or DVD, and it’s been proven that more people check the content on a mini CD or business card sized disc than on a regular 5 inch piece. As in, if you’re doing a run of 1000 Business card or 3 inch mini CDs or DVDs, they’re ideal if you’re looking to make an impact and increase the likelihood of whoever is receiving the media to view it. Ideal for trade shows or pieces that tread back to a web site. Their compact nature does wonders with how people perceive and use the media. Everyone from Nascar Silicon Motor Speedway, Microsoft, AMC Theaters, and John Deere use mini and business card sized disc as a promotional tool at trade shows or events, which is the ideal environment for distributing them. General Mills was including mini discs in their cereal boxes in 2000 as the prize. The discs were loaded with game and animation content. The most interesting domestic example of a good use for mini CD was the Bell Enterprises Web Minutes campaign of about 6 years ago. Bell Canada was offering pre-paid Internet access on Mini CD that you could pick up at a cash register at Future Shop. They were considered last minute sale consideration pieces, as in…a last little thing you pick up before leaving a big box retailer. The same as a pre-paid phone card. The only difference was, that since it was pre-paid internet access, they included serialization on the face of the media, and a uniquely generated user ID that was included in the custom developed media itself. They did this for a while and relied on the compact nature of the disc to act as a phone card of sorts, and be compact enough to have customers consider them more at that last stage of shopping before leaving. The dynamic content was a great gateway directly to the internet once you registered.
Downsides with business card CD or DVD is that packaging options can be limited for them, and although anything can be created, since they are not the norm, the custom packaging options tend to be a little more expensive. The more immediate issue is that they don’t work in vacuum drives. Car decks are a no go also, so they’re not ideal for audio clients. Since they are smaller, you’r also limited in terms of thier storage capacity, although mini DVD has addressed that for clients looking to fill them up. Mini CD can hold between 155 and 195 MBs of data, whereas Mini DVD can hold 1.4 GBs. They’re both limited as a result of their size, but in most cases, you can still put a wealth of content and media on them.
In a nutshell, they’re provocative, small, and have a lot of practical applications as a result of their size. They tend to get viewed more because of that as well. They’re not ideal for large or even standard data storage if you’ve recorded a record, or have a software. They’re also not ideal if you know that 10-15% of your audience is working with computers that don’t have the traditional tray style CD drive. That’s right, if you’re using a Mac book Pro or even a standard Mac Book….you’re out of luck, and with an increasing amount of the business audience using them, this would need to be considered.
Well…after reading this, you might be looking for CD and DVD busness cards. If that’s the case, then ask us for a quote.