Take a traditional local radio-style “mystery location” competition, throw in some cutting-edge social media tools like micro-blogging and GPS tracking and a pinch of the spirit of Duffman from The Simpsons and you’ve got Vodafone Live Guy.  Unlike the aforementioned local radio competitions though, Live Guy is giving away laptops, not car stickers.

Devised by London-based agency Dare Digital, the Vodafone Live Guy campaign has been designed to promote Vodafone’s rather nifty new Dell Inspiron Mini netbook.  This absolutely tiny laptop features a built-in 3G SIM, meaning as long as you can get a Vodafone signal you’re online.

The campaign sees Live Guy traveling to a different UK city every day.  He tweets hints at his current location and a time-delayed GPS signal shows his rough location.  The first person to find him at each of three locations in each city wins a netbook.

During his visit to Manchester today I caught up with Live Guy and interviewed him twice; once for the video below and then again for the next edition of the 14sandwiches podcast, out soon.  The podcast interview goes into some of the background to the campaign and why Dare Digital decided to go down the Social Media route.  For now though, enjoy an introduction to Live Guy and his epic journey around the UK.

14sandwiches.com meets… Vodafone Live Guy from Martin Bryant on Vimeo.