It's the business - April Six for Lenovo ThinkPad

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Driving global Brand Advocacy

Driving global Brand Advocacy

Overview

ThinkPads are the world’s toughest laptops, powered by military-spec technology and are uniquely certified for use on the International Space Station. The perfect rational choice. Except buyers don’t make purely rational decisions. For ThinkPad’s 25th birthday, Lenovo ran a global fan testimonial campaign.

The challenge

We were tasked to complement this advocacy campaign, but, without changing the testimonial construct, deliver more impactful creative for internal, channel and end user audiences. A tough proposition, just like ThinkPad.

Solution

ThinkPads were generally perceived as ‘work’ laptops. So, in a strategic pivot we repositioned ThinkPad with the line: ‘It’s the business’. This acknowledged ThinkPad’s workhorse heritage whilst addressing the growing market who only wanted one laptop in their lives. It also talked to the channel audience who were interested in what ThinkPad could do for their businesses. But we still had to address the issue of creating memorable fan testimonials.

Ideally we needed famous icons and influencers of all ages, to recount how and why they used ThinkPads to run their businesses. A big ask in a short space of time. The concept was to imagine which literary figures in the public domain, could be running their ‘businesses’ using ThinkPads; then bring these characters to life in film, digital and channel events. So we enlisted Santa Claus, Lady Luck, The Devil & Cupid to tell their very different ThinkPad stories.

The Results

Alongside the testimonial films which were distributed through social and digital channels, the campaign characters were brought to life in the channel, through themed spiff days. Lady Luck hosted over thirty themed events, helping to drive a 49% increase in sales during the initial phase of the campaign. She then handed the baton to Cupid on Valentine’s Day who continued to help drive sales, with sales teams incentivised through Lenovo’s LoveThink portal.

47 events

2215 sales people trained

+27% in loyalty scheme engagements

"This was a fantastic opportunity to solve the type of challenge we thrive on at April Six. The goal was to boost engagement, with the 25 year old ThinkPad, amongst Lenovo employees and channel partners across the UK. The anniversary campaign used advocacy from some ‘famous friends’ who we knew would be natural supporters for the particular virtues of the brand. The results have been outstanding and the B2B Marketing award is just the icing on the cake." - Emily Samways, UK Managing Director, April Six