(New York City) – After laying off nearly the entire staff two weeks ago, Micah Laaker conceived the idea of corporate sponsorship for the ailing Laaker.com. Having recently seen About.com‘s shameless brand bastardization (by replacing the "O" in "About" with a green, roatating Lifesaver candy), Mr. Laaker wrote to see if the same deal was available to other dot-coms.

The following is the complete text from Mr. Laaker’s open letter to the Nabisco Corporation (the parent company of Lifesavers Candies):

August 13, 2001

Nabisco Consumer Affairs
100 DeForest Avenue
P.O. Box 1911
East Hanover, NJ 07936-1911

To whom it may concern:

Greetings. After seeing the amazing Lifesavers’ sponsorship you folks arranged with About.com (where you replaced the O in About with a rotating green Lifesaver), I was interested in whether a similar sponsorship may be available for a website which I operate: Laaker.com. Laaker.com has a number of different business goals, but one of them often is what Kris Parker of the H.E.A.L. Foundation termed "edu-tainment." Who would mind getting a little knowledge while learning? Certainly not Laaker.com readers!

Anyway, I was curious as to whether we could strike a similar arrangement. As "Laaker" does not have any O’s in it, though, I wanted to toss out the idea of replacing one of the A’s in "Laaker" with an O. Many of my readers have complained about the extra A anyways, and a treaty with Lifesavers could be seen as a "cleaning up" of the Laaker.com brand.

The Lifesavers brand is all about having fun, eating candy, and living it up; so is Laaker.com (although there isn’t as much emphasis on the candy part)! The similarities don’t end there, either. Both our sites are trafficked by thousands. And while I’ll admit Laaker.com isn’t as brightly colored as Candystand.com, visitors have said they like the colors on my site. But maybe we could work something out during the promotional period if you wanted the color theme to match. We could even change the Contact Us page information so that all email went to Nabisco first! (Just an idea; not a make-or-break issue.)

If I may, I’d like to go ahead and suggest that we use either the "Butter Rum" or "Chill-O-Mints" flavors for the rotating candy in the logo. Chill-O-Mints has an exciting sound to the name, and I think it would be the perfect match. Please note, however, that "Wild Berries" is a no-go; without going into a lot of detail, let’s just say I have a strong aversion to the word "wild."

To wrap things up, I just want to say thank you for the possibility of this sponsorship. Laaker.com readers will certainly benefit, as the site has a definite need for cash infusion, and I think it’s pretty much a given that Lifesavers (and thus Nabisco) would benefit, too. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Respectfully,

Micah Laaker
Acting CEO, Laaker.com