Lenovo focuses on premium laptop category with its ‘Brave New Art’ campaign

In April 2023, consumer electronics company Lenovo teased a series of digital films on its social media handles. ‘Lenovo Yoga and Intel Evo Present: Brave New Art’, features two social media influencers and an equal number of artists. 

Multidisciplinary visual artist Santanu Hazarika, rapper and producer MC Heam, belly dancer Meher Malik, and graphic designer and music producer Prithvi Shetty, appear in the ad films. The two-part series sees these four collaborate with each other in pairs to create a piece of art.

With this campaign, the company aims to market its premium laptop offering, the Yoga series. The two 8-10-minute ads are available on Lenovo’s social media handles and can be streamed on Disney+ Hotstar. 

This is the first digital marketing campaign that Lenovo has undertaken in India. Traditionally, its marketing initiatives in the Indian market, have mostly focused on TVCs. A decade ago, the brand had roped in actor Ranbir Kapoor as its ambassador. He has featured in multiple ads for the company since then.

The brand’s change in its marketing approach is reflective of the changes that the laptop market in India has seen recently. A report compiled by international data corporation (IDC) found out that sales for premium laptops (laptops costing overUS$1,000) declined by 65.8% YoY in the commercial segment and 59% Year-on-Year (YoY) in the consumer segment in 2023. In this market, Lenovo is the second biggest player, with a share of 15.7% in Q1 2023. However, the company witnessed a 37.5 percent decline in shipments this quarter when compared with Q1 2022.

Chandrika Jain, director-marketing, Lenovo India, concurs with the findings of the IDC report to an extent.  However, she believes that consumer choices are leaning more towards the premium segments.

Lenovo India’s marketing team has identified some changes in the consumer behavior in India. “The features available on a device define the kind of demand that we’re seeing for the premium segment now. The consumers are now more mindful of the technology available on their devices when researching for their next laptop. The Indian audience now has a better understanding of what technology on their devices can enable and deliver. These devices act as your window to the world and have become a reflection of your content consumption, content generation, and interaction with the digital space ,” she tells afaqs!. 

In terms of product portfolio, Jain categorises Lenovo laptops under three categories: Yoga (creator-oriented laptop range), Legion (gaming laptop range), and IdeaPad (mainstream consumer offering). Lenovo’s current marketing efforts are heavily focused on promoting Yoga and Legion laptops.

Jain elaborates that Lenovo’s Yoga range has features which are more enabling for professionals who are in the creative business. According to her, the consumption and creation capacity that Yoga allows gives artists and digital creators more tools at their disposal. The laptop can be transformed into a tablet, it can be used as a screen for projection, among other features, which makes its more convenient.

Hence, the company identified creators as their target audience with this campaign. This audience is more prominently present in the digital space as it fits into their passion and lifestyle. Hence, the company took a digital first approach with the 'Brave New Art' campaign. 

Speaking about the influencers Lenovo roped in for the campaign, the company chose creators which it deemed have a good understanding of their audience and were able to deliver unique and attractive content.

“We designed this campaign as a 'jugalbandi' of sorts. Creators from different walks of art come together and bring forth a collation of their artwork in a beautiful fashion. In the midst of their collaboration, technology acts as an enabler,” Jain asserts.

On the campaign’s future, Jain shares, “These two films are just the start for ‘Brave New Art’. Our vision is to establish that Yoga is a device where artists and creators can express themselves thoroughly. We don’t want to stop at this. We want to also demonstrate what else is possible with Lenovo Yoga.”

Mithun Mukherjee, executive creative director, FCB Kinnect, the creative agency leading this campaign said, “When Lenovo approached us with a creative brief on the Yoga series, we knew there was a lot that we could do. The heart of this campaign is the fact that the creative universe at large is divided broadly into two schools - the analog and the digital. On one side are the unplugged– the brush and the pen, while on the other hand are the electronic producers, the dabblers in AI, and the likes. Considering these schools rarely interact, we conceptualized using Lenovo Yoga as a bridge and making these schools collaborate. Thus, Brave New Art was born. From studying some of the most interesting creators and art exponents to getting them to jam and generate some bold forms of artistic output, there is a lot the viewers can look forward to in the series.”

Priyanka Soni, national head - design, FCB Kinnect, the campaign’s creative agency, states, “Working on ‘Brave New Art’ allowed me to witness the transformative power of collaborative creativity. Lenovo’s vision for fostering creativity through technology is commendable. As a designer, I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute to such a ground-breaking initiative and witness its profound impact on the creative community.”

To promote its gaming offerings, the target group, gamers, look at different features that a laptop can offer them in more detail.

For Legion, it focuses on collaborating with Gaming events like eSports tournaments to build a connection with that audience. “The choice a consumer makes is largely feature driven. There's a mix of marketing initiatives that Lenovo is undertaking to promote Legion. We have a lot of partnerships with large events within that niche community, for example, with eSports, or we participate in festivals like the Comic Con. We have found that this is a great way to actually reach the audience that is relevant for us and allow them an opportunity to engage with the brand firsthand.”