Thursday - Jul 19, 2007
Televisionpoint.com Correspondent
Lenovo, the world's third-largest personal computer maker, has decided to outsource all - repeat all, its international marketing-campaign activities to India, the first time a global corporation has done so.
Lenovo is outsourcing the whole process of marketing pitches to its hub in Bangalore, which will work closely with Ogilvy & Mather India. Piyush Pandey, Executive chairman and National creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather, said, "India team will dream up global marketing campaigns aimed at dozens of countries, including the US, France and Brazil, though not China."
"I will get back to copy writing and forget for a while that I am the chairman of the company. And I will be writing ads for India and other global markets. We will have our own teams working closely with clients of each market. The hub is already operational in Bangalore and is populated by about 70-80 people from both sides. The creative work will happen in phases because of the complexities." Pandey Says.
While the O&M focuses on the creative development, Lenovo team will coordinate with Lenovo's country managers in various countries. O&M has earlier worked for global clients like Perfetti on a project basis for products that are not available in India. But Pandey said this is the first real global creative that has come to India.
"This is the first of its kind in India. Advertising industry is not a BPO but I would like to define it as CPO (creative product outsourcing). I think it is a huge challenge and will have to adapt into the global thinking capacity. We will have to display a lot of maturity and tap into our resources in various markets. I have got Ogilvy resources which have got experience in China and so we are not going to work exclusive of them but going to work with them. I will never lose sight of the learning curve of a global client being handled out of India. And if are successful in making this contract fly then Indian advertising industry will be benefited from it," said Pandey.
Sir Martin Sorrell, Group Chief Executive, Wire and Plastic Products (WPP), who was in India to address members of the press underscored the group's focus on India, China and other growing Asian markets, said this is not about labour arbitrage at all. "India is becoming a source of high-end creative output, has trained manpower in the advertising industry. There is a perception that India is an outsourcing hub because of cheap manpower. But like China, India can become a manufacturing hub of marketing creativity," Sorrell said.
For Lenovo, expertise in consumer marketing will be particularly important. In April, it had announced setting up of a consumer division to replicate its success in China. O&M has been associated with Lenovo worldwide and understands the company's brand. Its unit MindShare has been handling the media buying and planning duties.
In 2005, Lenovo realised that even after buying IBM's PC business, it had failed to attract eyeballs in India. So in 2006, an awareness campaign began. It was realised that television and print were not enough to build the image. It's research showed there are four events that bonds people and has most effect on consumer minds - music, movies, new and politics and cricket. So the route that was adopted was 'if there was a computer on screen it had to be a Lenovo'.
http://www.televisionpoint.com/news2007/ne...p?id=1184823183
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,134642-page,1/article.html
This is good because it enhances Sino-indian cooperation and friendship
