The opening session at the June 9 Corante Innovative Marketing Conference was led by Deepak Advani, SVP and CMO for Lenovo, which bought IBM's PC division. He discussed how the company is building its brand -- which is little known outside of China.
Sites to Start with
What you need to know, now
The best of the basics
- Lenovo
- The company's home page, good for a general overview of Lenovo's business activity
- Wikipedia: Lenovo Group
- A more contextual look at the organization, including information on its purchase of the IBM PC division, its lack of support for Linux, and competitiors
- Lenovo to Shun Linux
- While IBM's ThinkPads supported Linux for many years, Lenovo has decided not to encourage or support its use. This could bring a branding hit.
- The Lenovo Tapes
- "The following web site contains footage of alleged tests taking place at a Lenovo research facility. The producer of this site has no opinion pertaining to the authenticity of the media." You can see some of the videos below.
Brand out of Hand
One challenge, examined
Among Advani's most interesting remarks touched on the fact that after Lenovo purchased IBM's PC division, part of the deal was that the company couldn't use the IBM logo anywhere except on the actual product. They couldn't use it in marketing collateral, couldn't use it in ads; they could only use it on the machines itself. So how to you best leverage a brand you can't use in a widespread way?Advani outlined four approaches: Master brands, product brands, synergy brands, and dual brands. Each approaches the balance of company brand and product brand in a slightly different way. When people buy consumer products, they buy based on product, but for something like a PC, you buy based on manufacturer.
Lenovo has decided to continue to build and improve the ThinkPad brand and product line, and use it to better build the Lenovo brand -- much like Apple uses the iPod to maintain its brand.
Books Worth a Look
What you need to read
These tomes will tell the full story behind Lenovo's success
The Lenovo Affair: The Growth of China's Computer Giant and Its Takeover of IBM-PC
Amazon Price: $16.97 (as of 01/09/2009) 
Used Price: $2.98
The Legend Behind Lenovo: The Chinese IT Company That Dares to Succeed
Amazon Price: (as of 01/09/2009)
Used Price: $11.16
Relevant Reads
Additional resources
More material related to the content of this lens
- Venturing into Capitalism
- The Wall Street Journal's review of the Lenovo Affair by Ling Zhijun
Pictures of PCs
Visual machine language
Images of Lenovo-related objects and products
Hacking for fun and...
Hacking for fun and...
Hacking for fun and...
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