Abstract: The method of the present invention is directed to promoting a merchant comprising providing merchant-specific configuration software for specially configuring a user's computer system and/or computer peripheral device, such as a computer mouse or keyboard, to access a website and/or an advertisement by the activation of at least one switch by the user.

Abstract: A computer peripheral device, such as a mouse, and a method of promoting a merchant using the computer peripheral device. A marketing service is provided to a plurality of merchants who are interested in promoting business. The marketing service involves providing “merchant-specific” computer peripheral devices to preselected recipients or directly to the merchant. The devices are configured specifically for each merchant in that Website information associated with the merchant or a Website access triggering signal is programmed into the computer peripheral devices. The company logo, Web address or other merchant-specific information is also provided on a surface of the computer peripheral device. These merchant-specific devices are distributed to the preselected recipients, e.g., current or potential customers or vendors of the merchant. The recipients can access automatically one or more Websites of the merchant by merely actuating the Web switch on the device.