‘Youth look for slimmer, lighter machines’

BY IMPACT Staff

“Always have something unique to say to your consumers,” says Shailendra Katyal, Director- Marketing of Lenovo India, as he talks about targeting the youth market, the latest campaign with Ranbir Kapoor and evolution of brand Lenovo in India.

Q] What were the insights behind appointing Ranbir Kapoor as brand ambassador? How does he fit in with the brand’s philosophy and how does this campaign take the current positioning of the brand forward? What is the media mix used for this campaign?

Globally, we said we want to be a brand for Gen Next, which is a broad category. After research, our insights narrowed our target group to the youth, who are looking for technology for accomplishment and want performance machines. The age group would be 18-24 years, essentially the college crowd and first time job-goers, basically tech trendsetters and go-getters, the opinion leaders in technology. Over time, the brand has reached a certain stage and we feel that finally we are a technology company. To grow the brand, the communication has to be about the product itself. Our campaign is essentially that we make products and technology superior to the competition. Product differentiator is our strategy. For a youth connect in India, celebrities really work, especially at a mass level. We have taken the biggest youth icon in India today, Ranbir Kapoor. But the message is about the brand ‘Har laptop Lenovo jaisa light nahi hota’. We have increased our digital spend with this campaign. It is 15% on the digital domain, television and retail are the other prime media for us.

Q] Lenovo entered India in 2005. Please share with us some key marketing insights on the brand-building journey.

Lenovo has been fairly consistent in India; our first phase was very interesting. We were one of the first Indian PC brands to take on a celebrity, when we associated with Saif Ali Khan. We were also present on the first season of KBC. For the next five years, we remained at a fairly salient level where youth was concerned. Last year, we got into global positioning, which was the missing link. We had a country-specific campaign, but no global link tying everything together. The first real push happened in May last year on a global level. To give a perspective, Lenovo was an emerging marketing player from China. Suddenly we became global because of the acquisition of IBM. The next few years were spent building the channel and presence for the brand. Globally also, it was a period of consolidation because of recession 2008-2009 onwards.

Around two-and-a-half years back, we started getting our global act right. We became the fastest growing PC brand, we started investing in R&D and innovation, and brand-building which is what happens in most acquisitions. We acquired a much bigger company than Lenovo and consolidated the brand. We then started investing in early 2010, building the R&D and product pipeline. Throughout this journey, the core audience has never changed for us - we target the business segment and the youth segment. Our focus is building the brand in the upcountry market as well. We currently have a stronghold on the metros, but are aggressively targeting the Tier II two and Tier III cities with an added focus.

Q] Could you share some emerging consumer trends?

There have been multiple levels of changes, at economic and demographic points. The per capita income has shot up, so increased purchasing power coupled with young people, has led to more individualistic purchasing power. Most of the growth - in fact, 50-60 % growth - is coming from smaller cities. The youth today are also looking for slimmer and lighter machines, with easy mobility, extremely advanced and fast technology. As a leading brand, we consider both first-time buyers in smaller cities as well as demand for convenience among buyers in metros as important trends and cater to both.

Q] Please tell us about the brand’s strategy and positioning compared to competition.

Our first product differentiator is performance with robust technology, which is a factor that resonates with our consumers. We are investing heavily in the PC market with three innovation centres, and a huge investment on R&D. In times when consumers want everything to be fast, our machines boot up 40% faster than competition. Durability and value addition are the other differentiators. We have received consumer feedback to say our products score high on durability. We provide value products at affordable prices. This is again a conscious decision; we don’t want to be a niche brand. We want to be a mass brand, and our portfolio is the widest-serving at all price points. Our product prices range from Rs 18,000 to Rs 70,000. So we can cater to first-time buyers in smaller cities as well as premium buyers in metros.

Q] How are you using digital media to build your brand and connect with the youth?

We have a scientific framework to handle the digital domain with a conscious strategy. Our research tells us that 70% consumers do a lot of research online before their purchase. On an average, 21 data sources are looked at, before a person makes up his mind to purchase for technology as a category. We are present on all categories - search, blogger reviews, our SEOs are in place as well. Through our Facebook page, we give information and build the Lenovo ‘Doers’ community. In fact, we received 45,000 registrations for our ‘Doers’ campaign, which was a fairly successful one. Interestingly, a very important factor on social media is listening to our consumers. We have a team for social media at our agency, which reads updates and keep the dialogue going with consumers. Listening is a big part of brand engagement. The other part of it is research - we do a lot of dipstick surveys and receive responses from our 2.5 lakh fan base on Facebook. We are planning a lot of consumer engagements in the digital domain around our campaign with Kapoor in the next few weeks, including contests. We are one of the few companies to have the Managing Director’s email on the website, available for feedback. We get about 500 responses, obviously good as well as bad feedback. This increases transparency and gives consumers a direct access to us.

Q] Lenovo India has always used Bollywood celebrities for brand endorsement. Do you believe celebrities as brand ambassadors benefit the brand?

For us, the experience has been positive. The celebrity association has resulted in increased awareness for the brand and added value to it without overshadowing it. In all our associations, the celebrity has been a complimentary factor, because it has been consciously handled that way. The Saif TVC was feature-led, today, more than five years later, people remember both Saif and Lenovo.

Q] Are you coming up with any new product or service offering to keep up with growing competition?

One aspect that was missing in our portfolio was colour, style and lightness. That is what we have corrected this year. If you look at the entire range we have launched this year, it is all about being thin and light and colourful, which has now become a category requirement. Our earlier focus was hardware; this year we are also focused on aesthetics. Our entire new range has become thinner, lighter without compromising on performance, but actually adding to performance.

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Tags : CMO Interview