In the last year or so, I’ve noticed smartphone/tablet adjacent accessories have become big giveaway items. Instead of a crappy free pen, you get a crappy free pen with a rubber capacitive stylus tip on one end. Yay? At least pens are useful…the sticky card holder I received today is just weird, ugly, and useless.
If you haven’t seen one of these before, here’s the basic concept: it’s a simple rubber sleeve to hold 1-2 business cards or a single credit card, and it adheres to your phone or case with sticky tape. I find myself scratching my head about these for a few reasons. One, I don’t want to slap a random company’s name on the back of my phone. Two, 1-2 cards is kind of useless…you can’t hand out a bunch of business cards at an event with it, and I would question whether it’s really wise to walk around with a credit card half sticking out on the back of your phone. Finally, if you do need to carry cards regularly, there’s a whole universe of cases, from folio-style wallet cases to cases with hidden back slots. In fact, a coworker of mine showed me that she keeps an emergency card inside her iPhone case, which is a lot more secure than slapping it on the back of the phone.
So am I missing something, or is this the beer coozie/cheap pen marketing technique of the smartphone age?
