A New Marketing Foundation

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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.

Lenovo's US HQ

Where the magic happens

Right in the heart of Research Triangle Park

Books Worth a Look

What you need to read

These tomes will tell the full story behind Lenovo's success
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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
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