Lenovos Brand Strategies Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Lenovos Brand Strategies - Case Study Example Mr. Yang Yuanqing, The acting CEO of Lenovo Group reported to Xinhua news agency in April 2009 that the recent cost cutting operations tagged to an aggressive branding and marketing strategy, unleashed by the company are expected to lead to an additional income of $ 300 million (Chao 2009). This will not only bring the company back on the profitability track, but will also strengthen its position as a brand in China and the other emerging markets. There is no denying the fact that Lenovo is definitely not immune to the ongoing meltdown that has hit China as well. Thus, the branding strategy and marketing communications of this firm certainly deserve the attention of interested individuals and concerns. The astounding fact is that in the Chinese PC market, Lenovo commands the most commendable brand awareness. In fact, it is amazing to acknowledge that the brand awareness of HP in China stands second to Lenovo (China Business News 2007). As per a survey conducted by the search engine Baidu, based on a sample of 43,400 cookies, associated with the data pertaining to PC related searches, nearly 16.38 percent of searches were attributed to Lenovo, with HP standing second, commanding a pathetic share of 9.19 percent (China Business News 2007). The same survey also declared Lenovo to be the top ranker in the Chinese notebook market, accruing an impressive share of 16.9 percent of all the searches (China Business News 2007). The given survey concluded beyond doubt that Lenovo commands exceptional brand awareness in the Chinese PC and notebook market, courtesy its innovative branding and marketing strategy. The effective branding strategy of Lenovo dose not happen to be a very recent phenomenon, but a plan that was conceptualized and unleashed by Lenovo at least half a decade ago. In 2005, Lenovo unravelled its new global brand strategy, which was to be first tested and fine-tuned in China. This new strategy was rolled on and implemented in the Chinese market by the end of 2005. The spike end of this strategy was to exploit the Think trademark that Lenovo inherited from IBM to target the elite corporate customers having a detectable predilection for Lenovo's high-end products. In contrast, Lenovo chose to retain its original corporate name to attract the marginal corporate customers and individual buyers interested in the company's regular and mainstream products. Hence, this double brand strategy chalked out by Lenovo turned out to be utterly successful in covering a whole range of customers located in China. Lenovo's brand integration with IBM materialized into a huge success that ce rtainly bolstered the company' brand appeal in China and the related markets. Yet, Lenovo was well aware of the possibility of diluting its brand identification to the much popular IBM brand. Hence, the top management decided to use IBM brand name for its PC products for a period of five years only. The main objective of this strategy was to eventually give way to a more identifiable and strong Lenovo brand appeal in the Chinese and world markets. Simply speaking, Lenovo intended to use the brand appeal of IBM as a launch