They've closed 'The Office' but there's lots of inventory on hand.

The Office is over, finished after nine wacky, wonderful seasons. But Dunder Mifflin, that fictional paper company with a Scranton, Pa. branch office filled with oddballs, will never die.

That's because Dunder Mifflin achieved the Great American Retail Dream. It has gone from a make-believe business to A Brand. And, unless you are of a spiritual bent and those spirits prove accurate, being A Brand is as close as it gets to eternal life.

Of course, like a lot of things in the business world , this doesn't seem logical. You might reason that once The Office fades from our flatscreens, it would also fade from our memory. So, much for Pam, Jim and Dwight. But Dunder Mifflin? Turns out, that's another story.

Thanks to the miracle of marketing, Dunder Mifflin products are more popular than ever.

Here's why: A couple of years ago, even as it became obvious The Office wouldn't be on NBC much longer, a company named Quill.com licensed the Dunder Mifflin name. Quill.com is owned by Staples but run independently. It has been selling office supplies to other businesses and institutions since 1956, at which time customers ordered through catalogs. (Under 40? Ask a senior what a catalog is.)

Why, I asked Paul Bessinger, Quill.com's director of innovation, would you license the name of a company from a show that is about to die? Isn't that like buying coastal property right after a hurricane warning has been issued?

No, Bessinger replied, because, there's a lot more life in Dunder Mifflin than you might think. "A lot of marketing and merchandising is brand awareness," he explained. "So we thought it might be going off the air in primetime but it's going to be on the air in syndication for at least another decade. On top of that, you've got tens of millions of people who know that brand and identify with the brand. So, to me, The Office ending on NBC is a pretty minor concern."

The proof is in the sales volume. Quill.com does not give out specific figures but Bessinger said that, in very little time, Dunder Mifflin copy paper has become one of Quill.com's five best-selling products out of the 100,000 they carry.

Quick to see an even bigger upside, Quill.com has expanded its Dunder Mifflin line to include sticky notes, ruled yellow pads, markers, storage boxes, paper cups and facial tissue.

Facial tissue?

"That's really beginning to pick up steam," Bessinger said. "It goes back to having a product with an emotional connection to your audience. Facial tissues are great because it sits out on the desk. It can be a topic of conversation."

Also, he pointed out, Quil.com doesn't just take some generic product and stick a Dunder Mifflin logo on it. It tries to incorporate some Office-style humor into the design. At the top of the ruled yellow paper, for example, it says: "Look busy. Take notes."

Dunder Mifflin isn't the first brand to have a second life after appearing in an entertainment vehicle, Bessinger said. Holiday Inns came from the classic 1942 movie starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. Willy Wonka jumped from the silver screen to the candy counter. Even the NHL franchise, the Ducks, entered the world as the Mighty Ducks, from the Disney movie.

Bessinger sees a future filled with higher bars on the Dunder Mifflin sales graph. "When I look at our sales, they are on the increase. This is a growing brand of ours," he said.

So, business students, gather around. The lesson from all this is as clear as the Van Nuys soundstage where The Office used to be filmed: Death of a Salesman? Absolutely. Death of a brand like Dunder Mifflin? Never.