Lenovo has been enjoying a phenomenal run globally, outpacing overall industry growth for eight straight quarters and has been the fastest growing of the top 5 PC makers for six straight quarters. The Emerging Markets Group, of which ASEAN and Thailand are a part of, has enjoyed similar success.

The power brand campaign “Are you Lenovo?” was an integrated marketing and communications campaign designed to raise Lenovo’s brand awareness, consideration and preference in Thailand. All aspects of the campaign were successful, with dramatic results achieved on the PR front. This campaign was pivotal in raising Lenovo’s brand profile, and helping the company close its financial year (ending March 31, 2011) with record sales.

The Challenge

Lenovo was formed in 2005 when China’s largest PC company (Lenovo) merged with the pioneer of the PC industry (IBM PC Division). This merger brought together the best technology players of the East and West to create a global PC leader with growing market positions in developed and emerging markets. Based on its consistent and disciplined execution of its “Protect and Attack” business strategy, Lenovo has grown to become the world’s 4th largest PC Company, and the fastest growing of the top PC makers.

Having established solid market positions and a high-performing business, Lenovo has recently focused its attention on strengthening its brand profile as it seeks to become a power brand and leading personal technology company. Being acknowledged as a brand that is relevant to consumers is crucial for any technology company today, and the only way to build a consumer brand is to be relevant to the youth market.

To address that, Lenovo has begun initiating power brand campaigns in key markets around the world. Thailand was one of the first to run this.

The Campaign – Are You Lenovo?

‘Are you Lenovo?’ was a multi-faceted brand campaign comprising public relations, consumer activation, social media and advertising. The campaign was designed to raise Lenovo’s brand awareness and consideration in Thailand, with particular emphasis on strengthening Lenovo’s connection with the younger Thai consumers. This would be achieved through increasing brand exposure and enhancing the brand experience for consumers with the view of increasing market share.

The sequence of campaign activities were as follows:
A media event was organised in January 2011 to launch the “Are you Lenovo?” campaign in Bangkok, and this was followed by regional launch events in the second tier cities of Chiang Mai and Khon Kaen in March. A total of 125 media from 107 unique publications across the three cities attended the media events, comprising a strong mix of tier one dailies, broadcast and online titles.

To create consumer buzz at the grassroots level, flash mobs were staged in high consumer-traffic locations throughout Bangkok and the second tier cities between January and April. Shopping centres, IT shows, commuter thoroughfares and universities were the targets. As was the intention, members of the public spontaneously whipped out their mobile devices and recorded the flash mobs. As a result, a total of 16 video clips were uploaded by users onto Youtube garnering nearly 10,000 views.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSnSgRq31ww http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzK34c89z-E

In addition, executive interviews were arranged with broadcast media including Nine in Trend (channel 9), MEG (channel 9), SME Thailand (cable) and Morning Talk (cable) to talk about Lenovo’s strategy, growth aspirations and its brand campaign.

A secondary objective throughout the brand campaign was to raise awareness and educate audiences of Lenovo’s product differentiators. Special focus was given to Lenovo Enhanced Experience 2.0 for Windows 7 (EE 2.0) – a unique collaboration with Microsoft that delivers superior boot-up, shut-down and application performance times which enables Lenovo users to be more productive compared with any other PC brand in the market.

o In March, a media briefing focusing specifically on EE 2.0 was organised at Commart 2011, a high volume consumer IT show with a competition (called the “EE 2.0 Challenge”) held at hourly intervals where IT show visitors were invited to guess how quickly a Lenovo laptop using EE 2.0 could start-up.
o After the IT Show, the EE 2.0 challenge was rolled out to shopping centres around Bangkok. Almost 600 consumers actively engaged with Lenovo laptops to test start-up times over one weekend.

“Are you Lenovo?” media challenge: The challenge, open only to members of the media, took place between March and April and required participants to spot the campaign and take photos of themselves with key elements of the branding campaign featured. The objective was to reinforce recall and understanding of Lenovo’s campaign messages with the journalists.

Advertising was employed to help complement a strong PR push with large OOH billboards being employed across CentralWorld (largest shopping mall in Bangkok), BTS Train stations and at Bangkok’s domestic airport. Print ads, short TVCs and radio ads were also used over the campaign period to help raise brand recall.

To reach consumers outside of the capital city of Bangkok, Lenovo Thailand coordinated OOH advertising as well as consumer activations such as Flash mobs in cities including Chiang Mai and Khon Kaen. Press events were held in these cities to brief the media about the campaign launch.

“ARE YOU LENOVO? CAMPAIGN PR AND BUSINESS OBJECTIVES ACHIEVED!

? Attendance: 125 media from 107 unique publications across 3 Thai cities, media included a good mix of tier one dailies, broadcast and online titles.
? Within the first 48 hours of the “Are you Lenovo?” launch, 28 pieces of coverage were generated in the tier one dailies, broadcast and online media in Bangkok.
? A total of 73 pieces of print coverage from 44 distinct publications with a total of 10.68 million impressions were generated across the campaign period. A further 29 different websites carried campaign news, many of them repeatedly.
? Media coverage over the period increased by 134% year-on-year. As a result of the brand campaign activities, Lenovo broadened its reach and engagement with new media segments such as lifestyle and teens. Over 120 media outlets were engaged during the campaign. Almost 50% of the clips covered the consumer segment.
? Lenovo Thailand experienced an increase in consumer PC unit sales in the quarter following the brand campaign, and increased its market share in the consumer segment.