Why Companies Plaster Ugly Stickers All Over Our Immaculate Laptops

by Amar Toor on September 5, 2010 at 05:10 PM

Take a moment to glance down at your laptop. Chances are, you see a bunch of hideous, glittery stickers, with the names or logos of companies like Skype, Intel or Microsoft [Ed. Note: Nope! Just see white. Cult of Mac!]. Don't try and remove them, though. Scratching off these stickers, as with Chicken Pox, will only result in even uglier scars and residue. So, why are they there? The New York Times' David Pogue recently looked into the laptop flair phenomenon, and discovered that there's a very unsurprising explanation for all the annoying stickers most laptops sport: money.

Companies like Intel, Microsoft and Skype often pay serious amounts of cash to have their logos plastered all over consumer PCs. As Pogue points out, it's not even clear why some stickers are there in the first place. Anyone buying a laptop from Microsoft, for example, would likely already know that it's from Microsoft -- with or without an affixed sticker. Industry reps maintain that the stickers help sales reps identify showroom laptops when helping customers, although much of the very same information could just as easily be gleaned from retailer placards or from the laptop box. (The lone outlier, it should be noted, is Apple, which has so far refused lucrative offers to place an Intel sticker on its laptops, even though they come equipped with Intel processors.)

Fortunately, one company is bucking the tag trend. Advanced Micro Devices tells the Times that it will begin producing its own removable stickers in 2011, which can be peeled away without leaving any residue behind. After that, AMD may even do away with the sticker program altogether, which seems entirely reasonable to us. Companies like Microsoft and Intel certainly have some money to throw around, but is it really worth investing millions of dollars in an "advertisement" that, by all appearances, seems utterly ineffective? Indelibly marring an otherwise sleek laptop with an ugly logo isn't exactly the best way for a company to endear itself to clientele. Pogue facetiously suggests that these companies adopt a NASCAR-style program, by which it would directly pay drivers (i.e., laptop users) to carry their logos on their machine. An easier and more realistic solution, however, would be to simply scrap the whole idea.

Tags: advertisement, advertisements, amd, Apple, computer, computers, Intel, laptop, laptops, microsoft, money, skype, sticker, stickers, top

source: NYT

Comments

johnmcSep 5th 2010 6:21PM

Highest Ranked

Oh the fun I used to have placing those "designed for WIndows XP" stickers on trash cans and toilets.

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jaySep 5th 2010 7:25PM

Highly Ranked

These are pretty annoying, true. But what's more annoying are the people that leave the stickers on other electronic devices, like cameras and dvd players. Is it really necessary to leave the sticker that says "20x Optical Zoom!" on you 5 year old camcorder?!

No.. no it's not.

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ChrisSskSep 5th 2010 7:44PM

Neutral

I dont think Microsoft pays to have their logo on hardware.

For software and hardware to get the "Compatible with Windows 7" logo they need to be submitted to Microsoft and meet Microsoft's testing requirements for compatibility. so the manufacturers are the ones trying to get Microsoft's logo on their product and not the other way around

Also, some people seem to like these stickers. The pic used in this article has a "Linux inside" sticker that was obviously added after the owner bought the laptop. A colleague of mine has a 'Powered by Ubuntu' and an 'Ubuntu Key' (the ubuntu circle of friends that goes over the windows key) stickers on his laptop

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SideswipeSep 7th 2010 1:21PM

Neutral

@ChrisSsk - this is correct, it is referred to as the Windows Logo Program. It does not mean that any machine that has not gotten certified will not work, it just means that the machine has gone through and passed the program and may bear the logo.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd203105.aspx

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RuthSep 7th 2010 8:49AM

Highly Ranked

as a nervous habit, I scrape at the image and eventually the image disappears and just a shinny square is left....not toobad. Just as long as there is no penalty for removal as there is with mattress tags.

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Barbara LodenSep 7th 2010 10:28AM

Low Ranked

@RuthLeah
You can remove the tag from a mattress after purchase. Duh!
As for the stickers on computers mine fell on their own. I keep trying to glue them back for I want them to stay on the computer.

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Barbara LodenSep 7th 2010 10:29AM

Low Ranked

, @RuthLeah
You can remove the tag from a mattress after purchase. Duh!
As for the stickers on computers mine fell on their own. I keep trying to glue them back for I want them to stay on the computer.

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MoiraJeanSep 7th 2010 2:10PM

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I got a netbook with no OS and proceeded to make it a Linux. It had no stickers at all, and I actually missed that, so I made some of my own with kitty cats, my name, and the names of the OS's I installed.

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dickn2000bSep 7th 2010 4:08PM

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Uuuuhhhh RuthLeah...only retail merchants are fined for removing mattress tags, not the consumers who purchase them....Duuuuhhhhh!

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JimSep 7th 2010 6:52PM

Neutral

Aw. Removing or discontinuing the stickers will cut into Madison Avenue's plans tor 24/ 7 advertising whereever we look, and we can't have that happen can we now. And just think about all the people who produce these things that will become unemployed. Discontinuing them is downright un-American and anti-business as well. I bet this is another move by Obama, the Democrats, and liberals to destroy America as we know it. Now excuse me while I vomit from sounding like a tea-partier.

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Steve CSep 8th 2010 12:20AM

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"Anyone buying a laptop from Microsoft, for example, would likely already know that it's from Microsoft -- with or without an affixed sticker."

No, that person would be an idiot, same as anyone who thinks that Microsoft makes laptops. Guess the regular tech writer was away for Labor Day and the article was farmed out overseas. I mean, good lord, even my mom knows Microsoft doesn't sell laptops and PC's.

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wulffbaneSep 8th 2010 1:50AM

Highly Ranked

@RoyBatty

Oh Roy, You are soooo wrong about everything you said!!

Of course Microsoft makes laptops!! and
AMD makes Apple Mackintosh Desktops,
Gateway makes those gizmos we connect to the internet with,
"Intel Inside" just means that the computer has built in smarts, bekuz thats where the CPU is, which is just short for what I see everyday after IBM , because that what it jus reminds me of when it keeps rebooting all the time!! I keep control of my ALT and DEL keys by removing them from the keyboard each night and putting them back on in the morning but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I even took it to the Greek Squad and payed $300 to exterminate all the bugs that they found inside, but I told them that I already sprayed the whole PC with a can of RAID, so all the bugs should be dead. I dunked it in Lysol to kill the viruses afterwords, too. I didn't see any worms at all, because I mixed the dewormer in with the Lysol. All the Greek Squad told me is that I need to buy some IOMEGA thing to backup my files, but I told them that I couldn't buy anything made by IOMEGA becuase I was a member of Lamb-duh, MOO, Lamb-duh. Geez, what a bunch of idiots!

Anyway Roy, you really need to ketchup to the rest of us, bekuz I'm gonna be a substitute tech riter too, when my inturnship is over and I can learn you all on the inturnet.

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eri caSep 12th 2010 10:02AM

Neutral

so don't peel the stickers off in the first place. they do not bother me.

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bbourgeois87Sep 12th 2010 1:54PM

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The stickers are actually quite easy to remove... I've done it on all my laptops. Once you get them off, use a little rubbing alcohol or tea tree oil and clean off the residue. I don't see what the big deal is...

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