Trendsetters: Lenovo's CMO David Roman Embraces a "Never Stand Still” Brand Attitude

Lenovo's Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer David Roman believes that to stand out and build a brand in today's Digital Age, marketers must be fearless about giving up control in exchange for driving true engagement. He's also keenly aware that marketers must also support sales objectives and financial targets. "But,” he says, "we must do so in entirely new ways, because our customers have truly, dramatically, and permanently changed how they interact with us, what they expect of us, and how they will react to us if we do not deliver in an authentic way on our promises to them.”

Lenovo, the Chinese multinational technology company with headquarters in Beijing and Morrisville, North Carolina, has operations in more than 60 countries and sells its products in over 160 countries. For the past two years, Lenovo has become the world's largest seller of personal computers by unit sales. David Roman used this time of extraordinary change in business, in markets, and in competition as a catalyst to redefine the Lenovo brand.

He describes his rebranding efforts as "reinforcing a few things that were already true, reimagining the way we express those ideas to the market, and refocusing ourselves on working WITH our customers and fans to build our future. They are the ones who ultimately have the power to make a brand succeed or fail.”

Roman recognized that Lenovo had to begin by selling an attitude. A few years ago, the company developed its first unifying brand campaign called -- For Those Who Do. "It remains a good idea and fundamentally true,” says David Roman. "We believe we make products that help people do more. We believe our own DNA is made up of people who simply go out and do things -- take action, take risks, and take big steps forward. We did not want to lose this idea or the equity we built in it. But we knew the idea had to evolve to help us reintroduce the new Lenovo to our audiences. As a result, our new idea became: Never Stand Still.

David Roman asserts that Never Stand Still isn't a tagline. "It's an attitude, an energy, a mantra, and a belief. We have a fundamental belief that life rewards those who never stand still. We hire people who share this belief, and we reward them for delivering on it. We build products and services for people who share this attitude, and we believe we do this better than our competitors because it is a mindset that is truly authentic to our company. It's this customer-centric purpose that's fueling the way we express the new Lenovo.”

This new brand attitude has also affected the creation of a new Lenovo logo--now comprised of two elements: the word Lenovo (which never changes) and the space around it, which is a color "container” for the word that is meant to be truly dynamic and can incorporate/flexible enough to reflect a range of images, colors and patterns. Whereas most logos are created with rigid rule and restrictions, David Roman sees Lenovo's flexible logo container as more than a design element. "Our direction to our people is this: fill that container with whatever makes sense, and whatever reflects our "never stand still” attitude ... color, design, images, video. Our people -- and our customers -- have the freedom to make our logo a true expression of what matters to them in the moment. As a result, the logo is more flexible for digital media -- our top priority -- because the look and feel can fit any context.

Another departure from traditional marketing is that Lenovo never actually announced its new brand. While many companies choose to issue press releases about logo changes and new campaigns, David Roman, instead, believes that internal advocacy is crucial to success. Earlier in the year, Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing challenged the executive team to fully embrace social media as a means of creating more of a Lenovo voice and getting closer to customers. As a result, #iamlenovo was created to encourage all 60,000 employees to carry the Lenovo voice forward online.

Given the strong results, handing over the reins to the employees was an easy choice to introduce the new Lenovo brand identity. When employees understood the new identity and attitude and then saw the new logo and design in action, they took to social media to be the first ones to share the news. This generated a lot of momentum and excitement online.

The public reveal for the brand occurred at Lenovo Tech World, a global technology conference for Lenovo customers, suppliers, investors, the press, as well as other fans and stakeholders. According to David Roman, "We exceeded our wildest imagination with thousands of attendees who helped spread the word online about what we said and did at Tech World. The event worked because we showed never-seen-before concept products and gave first hand perspective from our leadership including the CEOs of Baidu, Intel and Microsoft to the right audience. From the minute people walked up to the China National Convention Center, they could sense something different -- a new day for the new Lenovo. Our new brand looked just as good on buildings, on flagpoles, and on the big screen as it did on our products and packaging.

"As I look across our rebranding thus far, we've not just changed our look-and-feel but really our approach to marketing,” admits David Roman. "We have talked about ‘engagement' for some time, but the rollout of the new brand has forced us to put those ideas to the test. From co-creation with our Instagram photographers, Tongal videographers, and customer community to experiential marketing with Lenovo Tech World, the new Lenovo is thinking and doing things differently.”

David Roman joined Lenovo in 2010, and as the company's CMO, he's responsible for driving all marketing activities for the global personal computer maker. He was named an Internationalist of the Year by The Internationalist in 2015 for his efforts in helping Lenovo to become a breakthrough brand in the personal computer space. He is a member of THE INTERNATIONALIST 1000 initiative--1000 Marketers Around the World Reshaping the Future of Marketing in global partnership with the ANA/Association of National Advertisers. The expanded story of Lenovo's rebranding will appear as a chapter in the upcoming book, The Reinvention of Marketing- Vol.2, to debut later this year, published by INGRAM for The Internationalist Press with the ANA for use by marketers and marketing students at Universities throughout the world.