The eOK .network

That’s what my hacker friend Michael Boman (pictured) asked me about yesterday evening. As a professional (read ethical) hacker, Michael is always on his Linux-powered ThinkPad everywhere he goes, and like many of us he’s fed up of paying for a laptop and giving free publicity to the computer maker’s brand.

His suggestion was to use customisable stickers like the one on his ThinkPad in the picture. It costs about $40 for a single custom one, bulk printing of these for the purpose of advertising could potentially make sense.

When he first mentioned it to me, I had a feeling that it wasn’t the newest of ideas. Sure enough its been thought of by Sacha Chua and productised by LapLooks.

But as we continued to think about it, I thought the success of it didn’t lie in the laptop lid as an isolated mini-billboard, but it had to be part of a bigger integrated campaign. Off the top of my head I thought it would best complement up and coming blog advertising outfits such as Advertlets and Naffnang in this region. Since their clients are already willing to advertise on bloggers’ online space, why not offer the value add of following the blogger’s physical “space”?

Since then, I’ve thought of a few other possibilities:

• Conference sponsors could give pay for delegates entry in exchange for their laptop lids
• Brands targetting youths could possibly buy the lids of university students laptop lids for $20/month

Other ideas from Michael were:

• Corporate branding of all their purchased laptops creating ambassadors of every mobile employee
• Affiliate marketing promotion codes could be on the ads to encourage visibility

Any other ideas? We would love to hear more in the comments.