Business advertising at one time meant mugs, pens or calendars emblazoned with a company name, perhaps its logo and sometime a phone number. Today a business is very likely to advertise using promotional complementary memory sticks.

The question now is whether the message should auto-run. At first glance the obvious answer would be, yes. After the expense of loading the message it would appear to be only logical to ensure that said message was seen by the potential client which you have so thoughtfully provided the memory stick for. However, before choosing the autorun option for its promotional memory sticks a business would do well to consider these points:

The Win 98 and 2000 operating systems, while becoming increasingly rare, are still out there and will not cooperate with auto-runs.

Different codes would need to be included in the promotional memory sticks to make them Mac friendly.

If the memory is stick is used on an office computer the promotional material might never be seen due to the company's firewall not allowing autorun files to start.

An autorun file can only be loaded during manufacturing which means the decision concerning content must be made in a timely fashion.

Last, but perhaps most importantly, an autorun file is going to be on the promotional memory stick for as long as the memory stick works. The user cannot delete the promotional message.

If this last point sounds more like a plus then a minus then you aren't thinking like a good salesperson. A successful salesperson knows that an unhappy client soon becomes someone else's client.

The thoughtful gift of a memory stick can, after only a few uses, become an annoying repetitive sales pitch that may be thrown out rather than being a consistently pleasant reminder of the company which provided it. An auto-run program will run each time a stick is used and, despite how well-crafted the message, will quickly become annoying.

When considering the autorun option it is important to keep these negative points in mind. Autoruns can be a help in broadcasting a sales pitch but will work best if the message is kept to a minimum and the memory sticks containing the autorun are distributed sparingly. A short message made available only to those likely to be able to see it is both cost effective and considerate; yet another option to autorun is a pop-up that would give the user an option of seeing the sales presentation. The sales pitch could still be made delete proof while at the same time not be intrusive.