Lenovo bets on digital advertising to push sales

Personal computers market leader Lenovo, which is trying hard to position itself as not just a PC maker but also a mobile and tablet manufacturer, has started spending a lion's share of its advertising dollars on digital platforms, a top executive says.

Ajit Sivadasan, Vice President and General Manager for Global Web Sales and Marketing at Lenovo, says digital advertising helps the company to differentiate from its rivals.

"We are at the cusp of being known as a consumer brand, and competing and doing the same things that entrenched brands do will not give us success," he says. Sivadasan, who was hired almost eight years ago to build an online strategy for Lenovo, is referring to the massive traditional media budgets which big brands such as Apple and Samsung have to promote their products.

One of the recent launches from the Lenovo umbrella has been its tablet brand, Yoga, which Sivadasan says has been promoted on digital platforms right from the conceptual stage. "At Lenovo, we call it 'engagement marketing', where you engage with your audience in an emotional and compelling way by creating a two-way conversation."

So, when Lenovo decided to launch the tablet, the idea was to design something that was different from the tablets that were already available in the market. The company did a series of fun videos on tablets and also invited consumers to film funny experiences with their tablets and put them up on YouTube and on Lenovo.com.

It also invited online suggestions on how the users would like their tablets to be. Based on consumer insights, the designers came up with a tablet that was designed to look like a folded book.

Just a few days after the Yoga tablet was launched, the company yet again invited consumer feedback on the product across digital platforms. "Yoga was an android tablet and a lot of consumers gave us the feedback they wanted a windows-based tablet. We at once rolled out a windows-based tablet, which we would have probably not done had we not got the feedback from the consumers early on," says Sivadasan.

Though Sivadasan refuses to comment on how the online activities impacted sales of Yoga, he claims that the tablet got eight million page views on social networking site Facebook within 30 days of launch.

It also received 15 million tweets and around 2.3 million people watched user-generated videos on YouTube. "The efficacy of a campaign goes up manifold on a digital platform and the return on investment is dramatically higher," he says.

Similarly, the company got professional gamers to give gaming tips on the Lenovo website. "We facilitated a conversation between gamers and our consumers and in the process promoted our product."

While Lenovo is the market leader in personal computers globally with a market share of 18 to 19 per cent, it has just four to five per cent share in smartphones and tablets. The company aims to build a significant presence in smartphones and tablets.