Lenovo set some simple objectives for its partnership with Reevoo: to drive customer engagement, increase conversions and empower its customer advocates.

Following initial success in four territories, Lenovo rolled out the Reevoo solution across nine more countries in western Europe in December 2014. By November 2015, Lenovo had expanded Reevoo into Mexico, Brazil and Colombia.

Now that Lenovo has benefited from ratings and reviews, the next objective is to use user-generated content to support its content marketing strategy.

For Lenovo’s February 2015 campaign, the Valentine’s Day Gift Guide featured a list of the electronic giant’s most romantic products, alongside authentic customer reviews. The campaign avoided sappy marketing messages and instead used customers’ genuine and authentic opinions on the tech they bought for their loved ones. Lenovo is looking forward to developing the strategy with Reevoo to help and advise even more potential customers, loved-up or otherwise, in 2016.

Stuart Gill is Lenovo’s UK and Ireland Communications Manager and he tells us more about the collaboration between the technology brand and Reevoo.

Tell us about yourself!

I’m the UK and Ireland’s Communications Manager at Lenovo. I run campaigns across all of our product groups from servers through to consumer tablets. We work to ensure that those buying our products, in business or for home, know our brand and understand our obsession with innovation and performance.

'We try to understand how people use our technology and use that feedback to create new generations of the product.' Stuart Gill, Lenovo

I also run all our social channels allowing us to talk directly with consumers and IT managers.

Can you tell us a bit about the structure of your marketing and social media teams? How do they work together?

Communications, commercial and consumer marketing all report to the same regional marketing director, which means we are all part of one virtual team. We regularly communicate and share priorities. The communications function supports the entire business, so it is important that I help amplify the work of my other colleagues to ensure as much success as possible.

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How do you use reviews and customer feedback in researching and developing new products?

All our consumer products undergo rigorous testing by users before launch. We also try to understand how people use our technology and use that feedback to create new generations of the product. Take our YOGA franchise – that was born from changes in how consumers use their PCs and tablets.

For our commercial products, our technologists regularly feedback requests from customers to the development team and each year we hold workshops to learn more about the technology needs of businesses.

How do you see the brand using UGC in future marketing efforts?

We try to encourage dialogue on our social channel and always encourage our customers to share content they create with us. Our current marketing campaign for our YOGA products, #Goodweird, asks users to share photos which they perceive as weird, but in a ‘good’ way, which is the essence of this product line.

How do you think your customers’ concerns and behaviour have changed in recent years?

If a customer had issues with their product, previously they used to go back to the retailer or call customer service. Now if they have an issue, whether it’s technical or customer service in nature, it gets posted onto social media.

We, therefore, have to reflect this change in behaviour in how we deal with our customer service to ensure that we not only track and manage complaints and queries via traditional routes but that every issue posted on social gets resolved.

'Offline marketing will always have its place, but as we are all now more socially aware, online does take precedence.' Stuart Gill, Lenovo

How have you managed to balance online and offline marketing? 

Offline marketing will always have its place, but as we are all now more socially aware, online does take precedence. As a manufacturer, it allows us to better understand the consumer journey and target consumers who might not be aware of Lenovo, via their personal interests.

Which social campaigns have been the most effective at Lenovo?

We ran a campaign called #TravelMyWay in collaboration with a top UK vlogger, in the run up to the summer holiday season. We used him to illustrate that a tablet can do more… and sent him around Marrakesh for 18 hours and challenged him to see as much of the city as he could before his battery ran out. The campaign yielded huge results; allowed us to reach a totally new audience; and create new and engaging content.

How are you approaching marketing your products this year?

All our marketing campaigns are focused on innovation and how Lenovo products allow you to do and experience more. Tablets and PCs are integral to our lives – we experience so much through them – so they should be an extension of our personality.

How a tech brand got its customers talking