Lenovo eschews high-voltage celeb endorsements for global Yoga campaign

If Lenovo is traditionally known as a maker of solid rather than stylish consumer electronics, it has tried to improve this impression recently with its Yoga PC range. Competing in a premium and crowded market, Lenovo has opted to steer clear of traditional marketing methods and campaigns for this lineup. 

Instead, for its latest global campaign, rather than celebrity endorsers and high voltage, the Chinese electronics brand has opted to pair customers’ human traits with innovative technology. The 'For All of Us' campaign, by independent agency SuperHeroes, is all about tech that allows people to perform optimally.

“Where most technology brands are celebrating some extreme versions of human achievement, we’re taking a more authentic approach," Rogier Vijverberg, founder and ECD at SuperHeroes, said in a statement. “We wanted to ... show empathy for people’s unique goals and flaws."

This global campaign aims at establishing Yoga as the top choice in the premium consumer laptop category. It has been released in 11 markets in North America, Europe, China, Latin America and Asia Pacific and features a range of digital and TV materials, as well as OOH and retail assets. The campaign films were directed by Martin Aamund from Hobby Film, known for his award-winning mix of beauty and naturalism with humor and oddity.

According to Marina Schaepelynck, Lenovo's global marketing director, the challenge for the brand was to cater to its target group—20- to 45-year-olds with significant disposable incomes—but also a highly distracted audience saturated with all manner of content and media. So, rather than have yet another celeb or high-achiever selling them a product, Lenovo decided to go the other way with this campaign. With ad blockers up and subscription services on tap, brands like Lenovo must now work doubly hard to reach them, she reckoned. 

"We want to appeal to consumers that want to achieve more with their lives, not just their careers," Schaepelynck told Campaign Asia-Pacific. "We chose not to work with extreme achievers and  personalities, but instead focus on people who forget passwords and leave their coffee on taxi roofs.... They see technology as an enabler of their ambitions." So, rather than crow about being the lightest, fastest and best device, Lenovo has focused on the ability of this product to get the job done. '

Even as Lenovo was piecing together the campaign in the early part of the year, it was buffeted by a series of challenges that made the firm's executives and agencies change their plans. For starters, the brand snuck in a shoot in Copenhagen—one of the few locations open when work started—Lenovo's team in US, Europe and Asia all worked simultaneously using a livestream to all remote stakeholders. allowing them to stay informed and immediately give inputs to the team on the ground. SuperHeroes won the deal at a time when Beijing was locked down and Europe and the US were soon to follow. 

Even as it found a differentiated approach for its product and navigated the challenges of putting together this campaign almost entirely remotely, Lenovo also fronted the challenges of dealing with a more aware consumer. In the year when Black Lives Matter and other citizen movements exploded into the collective consumer consciousness, Lenovo was compelled to think harder about how to address its target consumers. 

"Consumers now want you brands they use to be authentic and share their vision and what they stand for," says Lenovo's Schaepelynck. "An important goal for us was to show diversity and inclusion in gender, ethnicity, personality traits and more that make us all unique." 

CREDITS

Lenovo
Vice President - Global Consumer Marketing - Matt Bereda
Global Marketing Director- Marina Schaepelynck
Global Brand Marketing
Lead - Archit Mardia
 
Superheroes 
Executive Creative Director - Rogier Vijverberg
Creative Director - Niels Straatsma
Creative Copywriter - Elliot Stewart-Franzen, Fede Botella Padilla
Strategy Director - Daniel Vargas-Gomez, Geoff Desreumaux Jr.
Strategist - Alex Araque Diaz
Art Director - Ola Syse, Victor Farias, Diego Lauton de Oliveira, Boris Thorbecke
Design - Dora Visky, Nando Pawirodikromo, Lili Karakas, Jack Prigel
Motion Design - Huy Nguyen, Ruben Wiegerinck
Client Director - Django Weisz Blanchetta
Account Director - Jennifer Harris Creative Agency Producer - Severien Jansen
 
Hobby Film 
Director: Martin Aamund
Executive Producer: John Gerard Producer: Phie Hansen
Line Producer: Mette Tørsleff
Director of Photography: Lasse Frank
Music Composer: (Léo Petit & Carl Egger)
Music Supervisor: Jesper Gadeberg Sound Designer: Thomas Martin Editor: Olivier Brugge Coutté Colorist: Edward Negussie