Lenovo Gains Channel Steam With New Tablets, Branding Campaign

Following the successful inauguration of its North American partner conference in May and the launch of new tablets, Lenovo is marching forward with an aggressive new branding effort and a goal to become the No. 1 PC maker in the channel.

Lenovo, which acquired IBM's PC division in 2005, launched its first-ever global brand campaign in the spring to build on its recent momentum, which includes several high-profile products releases and successful showings at the Consumer Electronics Show. The campaign, dubbed "For Those Who Do," presents Lenovo products not as stand-alone devices but instead shows them being used by professionals and hobbyists for creative tasks (for example, one print ad shows a Lenovo ThinkPad mounted on the dashboard of a storm chaser vehicle).

For Lenovo, a strong marketing effort to raise its profile was the last step in a three-pronged approach to not only boost business but also transform the company for the future. "It's the perfect time to position Lenovo and our product set around the idea that we create the technologies for those people who get out there and make things happen," said Rory Read, Lenovo president and COO, in an interview with CRN. Lenovo's makeover as a true player in the global PC market began in 2008, ironically around the time of the global economic meltdown. The computer maker began investing heavily in research and development and worked on revamping virtually its entire line of PC products. The fruits of those efforts would be unveiled in Las Vegas for CES 2010, but not before a few bumps in the road.

For example, in early 2009 Lenovo underwent a major restructuring and executive shakeup after experiencing a decline in sales and disappointing third-quarter results. Lenovo CEO William Amelio resigned, and former chairman Yang Yuanqing stepped down to assume the chief executive role while Rory Read, formerly senior vice president of operations, was promoted to the new position of president and COO.

The executive changes and big investments in R&D paid off -- Lenovo wowed attendees at CES two years in a row with new ThinkPad and IdeaPad notebooks, all-in-one desktops and tablets. And even better, Lenovo has now run off a streak of eight consecutive quarters as the fastest-growing PC maker in the world.

But the company realized this year that more work was needed, particularly around marketing and branding. At the partner conference, dubbed Accelerate 2011, David Roman, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, acknowledged that Lenovo lacked the general brand awareness of other major PC makers and had quite a bit of ground to make up, especially in the consumer market.

In fact, during his keynote Roman presented Lenovo's own market research that showed six out of 10 people in the 18-24 age range had never even heard of Lenovo. And while businesses were well aware of the ThinkPad brand, they hadn't been exposed to many of its newer products.

To erase those deficits, Lenovo launched the "For Those Who Do" campaign in the spring for the consumer market, with a special focus on younger consumers with viral videos like the "Boot or Bust" spot that shows a ThinkPad being tossed out of an airplane with just 10 seconds to boot up and deploy its parachute.

NEXT: Lenovo's New Image, Tablet Time

Lenovo partners say the vendor's biggest challenge by far is its lack of brand awareness. "That was the biggest obstacle -- the question of 'Who's Lenovo?' " said Lincoln Ekle, president and co-owner of On-Site Computer Guy in Hinckley, Ill. "It was great to see [the new branding effort], and it's already having an effect. We haven't heard that question nearly as much since they started running the new ads."

Lenovo officials believe the consumer-focused marketing blitz will trickle up into the SMB market, which traditionally has been a weaker area than the enterprise for the company. "I think the time is now to push in both directions, and to make sure we get that shelf space in the large retails, and also make sure we're creating the next generation of SMB-focused products like the new ThinkPad Edge systems," Read told CRN. "We have momentum, so let's keep the ball rolling."

One particular product category looks to have a lot of overlap potential in those consumer and SMB markets: tablets. Lenovo recently unveiled three long-awaited tablet models, including the IdeaPad K1 and P1 for consumers. The Android-based K1 tablet is available now, while the Windows 7-based P1 is scheduled to launch in the fall.

But Lenovo's potential ace is its commercial-focused ThinkPad tablet, which will be released Aug. 23. While the iPad has dominated the tablet market thus far, many vendors and solution providers believe there's potential for an enterprise-class tablet to win over business users. The ThinkPad tablet, which comes with Nvidia's Tegra 2 processor and Android 3.1 operating system, could fit that bill.

One caveat, however, comes with Lenovo's tablet strategy: Its leadership still believes the PC is the dominant form factor and that the tablet won't be replacing notebooks and desktops any time soon. Read said he believes the tablet will eventually settle in at between 14 percent and 18 percent of the overall PC market, and he scoffed at the idea that the PC is dead (a notion that, ironically, led to IBM's sale of its PC division to Lenovo in 2004).

"Tablets are important, don't get me wrong," Read told CRN. "But they've been around for 10 years, and it's just that we're seeing a different solution today with touch-screen capability and other features at a different price point. That's going to evolve, and you're going to see tablets blur into the traditional PC space."

That view helps explain why Lenovo took its time developing, tweaking and launching its tablets while other vendors rushed their offerings to market; The IdeaPad U1 tablet-notebook hybrid, which turned heads and won numerous accolades at CES in 2010, still hasn't seen the light of day. While the slow-and-steady approach may have made some partners and customers impatient, Lenovo believes that charging ahead with a "me-too" product would have been a mistake. "We waited so we'd have the right products to bring to market," Roman told solution providers at Accelerate 2011.

And so far, partners say the wait has been worth it. "We're really jazzed," Ekle said. "[Lenovo's] tablets have great applications in health care and education, and they've got a set of ideal features for businesses that want to secure and protect their data but also share through the cloud."

Tablets aside, Lenovo's leadership is clearly more interested in bolstering the sales of its core products, especially in emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil, while also attracting like-minded partners who have sizable desktop and notebook businesses and still view the PC as an integral part of IT infrastructure. "The PC can be the lowest-priced part of a solution," said Chris Frey, executive director of Lenovo's North America Channel, "but it can also be the most costly if it goes down."

One such partner is Nex-Tech in Hays, Kan., a longtime IBM PC reseller that still leads with ThinkPads and also exclusively uses Lenovo equipment internally. "We do a lot of PC sales. We see plenty of businesses, schools, offices and banks with PCs in front of them, so the PC is still alive and well," said Loren Von Lintel, account executive at Nex-Tech. "We'll go where the market takes us. We've had some banks inquire about tablets and slates so if that's what customers want, we'll deliver them. But the PC demand is still strong."

NEXT: Lenovo 'Accelerates' With Partners

Arguably the most important part of Lenovo's makeover, surpassing its revamped products and marketing push, is the computer maker's staunch channel commitment. The company has spent the past two years instilling a strong indirect sales philosophy from the top down. While many vendors say they are channel lovers, Lenovo's effusive praise of solution providers is so strong at times it might make you blush.

Lenovo's passion for the reseller channel was on display at the company's partner conference. Accelerate 2011, held in Las Vegas, attracted approximately 440 partners and featured strong partner-focused Lenovo executives such as Read, Frey and Yuanqing.

"Having an event like this for the first time is just critical," Frey said. "We really wanted to send a message to the industry that we're serious about the channel."

Compared to other partner conferences for major vendors, Accelerate 2011 may have looked small. But Lenovo wanted to have an intimate event that didn't drag on too long and put partners to sleep. "We didn't want to keep them here for a week," Frey said. "Two or three days are fine. We didn't to keep them out of the office for a week and suffer information overload. If they go home after three days with one or two things, then we've succeeded."

Lenovo's channel staff has concentrated on showing partners how they can make money in the PC business, and the conference's breakout tracks reflected those efforts. Accelerate 2011 featured seminars that mapped out how partners can tie Lenovo products to hot solutions such as cloud computing, virtualization or data protection and touted features like Secure Cloud Access client software for ThinkPads and ThinkCentres.

Another focus for Lenovo was bringing together a wide range of partners, from larger enterprise-level integrators to regional SMB-focused solution providers, and exposing them to new products, especially those outside the core ThinkPad notebooks. The computer maker also promoted its ThinkServer and ThinkCentre systems through its TopSeller discount pricing program. "Our ThinkPads are legendary, but we have so much more," Frey said. "It's important that partners see the full breadth of our product line."

Even some longtime partners weren't aware of some of the new desktops and servers Lenovo had developed. "I thought the conference was very informative," Ekle said. "It was great to see a lot of the new products up close because sometimes even as partners you don't realize everything that a vendor has."

Feedback on Accelerate was largely positive. Von Lintel said Lenovo put on a strong event considering it was the company's first partner conference. "It was very organized and well planned. The unique thing was the way they broke up the sessions into small, 30-minute classes," he said. "It wasn't too overwhelming or long like some events. They gave you the right amount content and information over a two-day period."

Judging from the reception of the attendees and the interest in the event -- Frey said Lenovo cut off registration three weeks earlier than expected because they were overwhelmed with applications -- Accelerate will be an annual staple for the computer maker. Lenovo officials believe the event will help distinguish the company in the channel against rivals such as Dell and Acer.

Following the partner conference, the company continued to make noise in the channel with the Lenovo Partner Credit program, which offers eligible SMB resellers up to 60 days of interest-free credit through Lenovo's distributors (Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Synnex and D&H Distributing). Frey said Lenovo's relationship with its distribution partners is the strongest it's ever been and that it plans to leverage distribution even more as it continues to drill down into the SMB market.

Frey also said that partners can expect to see more channel-focused moves in the next 12 to 18 months. "It's a very competitive market on the PC side," Frey said, "so we have to stay as forward-looking as possible."