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The pocket presentation |
| With digital business cards, carry a full presentation in the
palm of your hand |
By Robyn A.
Friedman
August 2, 2000: 12:31 p.m.
ET
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BOCA RATON, Fla. (CNNfn) - Will Hughes
recalls lugging boxes of marketing material to trade shows he
attended in the past as a marketing rep for ebuyxpress.com. But
those days are over. When Hughes gets ready for trade shows now, he
just grabs a handful of digital business cards and hits the
road.
Digital business cards (DBCs) are CD-ROMS cut to the
size of a business card. They go by many names -- Web cards,
buzzcards, D-cards, digicards and cybercards, as well as others --
but they all can be used in nearly any computer with a slide-out
CD-ROM tray.
 DBCs hold about 35 megabytes of data, plenty
for a full-featured presentation with digital audio, video, photos,
text, 3D animation -- even virtual reality. Larger cards that hold
up to 100 megabytes also are available, as are custom-shaped
cards.
"People thank us," says Hughes, director of marketing
communications at ebuyxpress.com, a Dulles, Va.-based
business-to-business procurement site for the building maintenance
industry. "They can stick the card in their shirt pocket and walk
away. Most of the stuff at trade shows ends up in the trash can, but
I think this actually gets a look."
Putting the Bush message on
disk
DBCs are innovative, and they're
spreading rapidly through the business community. They've even
caught the attention of the powers that be in the Bush/Cheney
campaign, which this week distributed 5,000 "Yada Cards" to
delegates and alternates at the Republican National Convention in
Philadelphia. The cards contain six four-minute video segments about
Bush's message, says Bill McNutt III, a partner in Dallas-based New
Media Gateway, the company that manufactured the cards.
In
addition to portability, DBCs offer small businesses some other
advantages:
- They can be customized for almost any purpose, from marketing
and public relations to recruitment.
- They can link users directly to a company Web site,
encouraging them to place an order or request information.
- They are cost-effective. According to Lauren Hunter, a
corporate PR specialist at e21, a Freemont, Calif.-based marketing
firm, DBCs cost half as much as printed full-color marketing
pieces.
- They attract attention. Because they are novel, DBCs have a
"wow factor." "Unlike traditional paper business cards, they tend
to get passed around a lot," says Ed Robertson, president of
Multi-Media Live, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based multi-media production
firm. "If the message is powerful and the content is unique,
someone's going to take that card and pass it on to a
friend."
Yet despite their advantages, DBCs have
drawbacks. Some small businesses find the cost prohibitive. DBCs
cost about $1 to $2 each, depending on volume. But that's just for
duplication; the cost of design -- which can run $10,000 to $20,000
or more, depending on the complexity of the presentation -- is
additional.
 Another drawback is that the cards
are static; to change the content once they're printed, you need to
redesign and reprint the CD-ROMs. A company using printed materials,
by contrast, can make changes easily and cheaply.
And
questions remain about their effectiveness. Although some people
claim that people toss DBCs just as readily as they do printed
material, others swear by them. Debbie Ng, for example, an account
coordinator for GPC Public Relations in Ottawa, Canada, used the
cards for a recent campaign and attributes a 150 percent increase in
phone calls to her client to the cards' release.
Be sure the presentation is worth the
effort
Yet experts say the cards are
effective only if the presentation is worth watching. "Make sure
that the content is relevant and powerful and will engage the user
many times," advises Nagaraja Srivatsan, vice president of SeraNova,
an Edison, N.J.-based Internet consulting firm.
And despite
the raves of most DBC users, others warn that companies should
carefully investigate the costs before committing to their use. "Ask
yourself if the cards will work," advises Les Goldberg, vice
president of Uniloc.com, a software distributor based in Huntington
Beach, Calif., that uses DBCs.
"If they give you the
advantages of sales contact, space reduction, and the impression
that you're in high tech mode, it's a great use of funds. But if
you're using them as a giveaway, see if it fits within your budget.
They're a luxury item."  |
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