Campaign Imminent: Lenovo taps new B2B creative AOR following CMO hire (Score 72)

Sales Lead: Lenovo recently consolidated its global B2B creative business with Wunderman Thompson Atlanta, concluding an eight-month review handled by R3.

• The agency will take current B2B campaigns and making more cohesive brand messaging.
  • This will involve less of a focus on TV marketing and more of a focus on digital and social.
• Lenovo's account will be spearheaded by chief client officer Carrie Philpott, chief strategy officer Ellie Banford, and chief creative officer Tom Murphy.
• Emily Ketchen, the VP and CMO of Lenovo's intelligent devices group and international markets, mentioned that the company's B2B business is "significantly" larger than its consumer business.
• Upcoming work will involve a marketing push of Lenovo as a business solutions provider from the "pocket to the cloud."
• Wunderman Thompson Atlanta's first Lenovo campaign will have rolled out by mid-2024.
• This shift closely follows Lenovo's March 2023 hire of CMO Flynn Maloy, who was previously the VP of GreenLake Cloud services marketing at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
• The company will likely:
  • Launch a new campaign soon
  • Implement strategy shifts
  • Ramp up digital spend
  • Conduct additional agency reviews
• Target demographic: 
  • Primary: Business DMs
  • Secondary: Gen-X

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: Though Lenovo isn't focused much on TV, the company returned to this channel this year for the first time since 2021; Lenovo has allocated around $4.1k so far.
  • Last year: The company didn't utilize this channel last year and only allocated around $253 in 2021.
  • 2023 ad programming: Lenovo's 2023 commercials have targeted Gen-X watching shows such as BBC News, Click, Verified Live, The Travel Show, and Newday.
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: So far in 2023, the company has spent approximately $41.5m on digital ads, 29% less than the approximately $58.8m spent by this point last year.
  • YTD data: Lenovo has earned roughly 5.5b digital impressions YTD via Facebook (38%), Instagram (27%), YouTube (22%), desktop display (9%), and mobile display (4%) ads.
  • Last year: The company's estimated full-year 2022 spend, $91.2m, barely (1%) decreased from that of $91.9m in 2021. 
• Additional channel insights  
  • Lenovo utilizes Google Ads along with radio, digital, local broadcast, OOH, print (B2B and B2C magazines), Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and online video (primarily via Youtube.com and Youtube IOS) ads.
  • The company sponsors podcasts such as Global News Podcast, Lex Fridman Podcast, Freakonomics Radio, and StarTalk Radio.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: Roster shifts often follow one another, so reach out soon to remain top-of-mind.
  • An advantage may go to those able to offer B2B-specific work.
  • Per Ketchen, the company has started “driving towards a more unified and efficient agency model."
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Wunderman Thompson Atlanta: B2B creative AOR (September 2023)
  • Assembly: Media AOR (April 2022)
  • MediaMonks: Media and digital agency partner
  • Zeno Group: PR AOR

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix; podcast insights by Podchaser.