The Hindu Business Line : Logging onto Lenovo

And if you had blurted out `Leno who?' you probably could have been excused. Because back then, not many knew this company from China that bought over IBM's PC business.

But the story is different today. Although the brand is not a runaway hit, it has managed to build adequate brand awareness and equity. Says Deepak Advani, Senior Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer, Lenovo - Worldwide: "15 months ago when we started brand building in India, Lenovo had 1 per cent awareness among the public. It rose to 38 per cent soon and today it is 74 per cent. Three out of four people on the street know about Lenovo (quoting an AC Nielson survey)."

The story has been similar in the rest of the world too. India has just been one of the markets the company has had to convince. Post-acquisition in May 2005, Lenovo had its task cut out. It had to first tell the world that nothing would change as far as IBM products were concerned. At the same time, Lenovo didn't want to feel too comfortable under the IBM umbrella. It realised that the faster it got out of the IBM shackles, the better it was for Lenovo as a brand.

The company also didn't want to be known just as a Chinese company, but as "a new world company with new thinking" and as someone who built the best engineered PCs through innovation and investment in R&D. Says Advani: "In December 2004, when we had an intent to buy out IBM's hardware business, we asked 4,000 customers around the world about what they thought of Lenovo. People had questions like - Will innovation come down? Will quality suffer? ... We had to assure people that not much will change ... that we will have the same IBM people and quality. We had to promote the ThinkPad (laptop) brand as Lenovo's. We also had to breakaway from IBM and build our master brand."

The Lenovo Y300 notebook

Lenovo began tackling each market differently. Explains Advani: "We sliced the market opportunities. We saw that 54 per cent of the new PCs were used in the emerging markets of India, Russia, Brazil and China. 90 per cent of growth in mature markets was in the notebook category. While IBM was focussed on large enterprises and mid market businesses, in India, we decided to go after consumers and small businesses."

The company's global revenues stand at $14 billion with China, US, Japan and India being its biggest markets. With retail booming in the country matched by an equally strong passion for gadgets, India was a must market for India.

Lenovo saw in India a potential market for consumer retailing (till then consumer products were only sold in China). The storefront became a critical factor for wooing consumers in India. Today, Lenovo has 45 exclusive outlets here and is present in 250 multi-brand outlets across 130 cities. A successful experience in India prompted Lenovo to adopt the India model in four Asean countries — Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. Advani says Lenovo is also thinking of expanding into the consumer segment in the rest of the world due to the success of its India business strategy.

With so many choices for computers, why would one opt for Lenovo, notwithstanding the IBM tag, which it wants to shed anyway? "We strive to stand out through innovation," says Advani, who is quite passionate about the multi-media desktop with a job dial that switches between various modes such as audio and video and the notebook with the face recognition function. The Think brand, touted as the "ultimate business tool", is a strong brand with its range of ThinkPad laptops and ThinkCentre desktops.

Marketing ties

To drill home its innovative edge, Lenovo resorted to partnerships that reflected the brand's core offerings and philosophy. Lenovo's latest television and print advertisements with the Bollywood siblings Saif and Soha Ali Khan try to capture the essence of the brand — "young, innovative, and the company of tomorrow." Says Piyush Pandey of O&M, which is behind Lenovo's advertising campaign: "The advertising is built on the new world, new thinking theme. It captures the spirit of an emerging India going towards success. We have not used established people; there is no gyan. It respects consumers' intelligence. It tells consumers: I am you and I am changing. It is edgy, it's robust, youthful and doesn't talk too much."

Globally too, Lenovo is looking at associating with sporting events that will help the company showcase its technology. For the forthcoming Beijing Olympics in 2008, Lenovo will provide over 10,000 computers for gaming, scoring and the Internet cafes.

The company has also partnered with racing team Williams to increase its brand awareness in Europe, where Formula One is huge. Lenovo will provide its PCs for all of Williams' operations; "their cars will also be started with our notebooks," says an excited Advani.

"In 1984, with $25,000 and 11 ambitious engineers Lenovo began, 20 years later we buy the company that created the category. Today, we have broken away from the IBM name. Our advertising used to be `Lenovo IBM' but now the handcuffs are off. We want to use every cent we have to build Lenovo."