Lenovo Sets up Digital and Social Media Hub in Singapore

Adaline Lau | May 16, 2011

Hong Kong– Lenovo, a personal technology company from China that acquired the former IBM personal computing division, is in the midst of interviewing candidates to set up a digital and social media hub based out of Singapore. The hub is designed to increase Lenovo’s digital investments for branding and marketing worldwide.

Lenovo plans to hire 20 talents before year’s end in a wide range of digital specialists from digital and social technologists to social content, metrics and analytics managers as well as a video curation and seeding manager.

Ajay Kaul, executive director, worldwide marketing services at Lenovo, said it will be a centralized place for digital thinking and strategy planning to build tools and processes that will fit into marketing plans for the various geographies and regions of the company.

He explained that the digital hub is not going to be a “back office” but a one-stop shop for global marketing teams.

Kaul, who is based in the global marketing services hub in Bangalore, India set up four years ago, said they have chosen Singapore to launch the digital and social media hub as it reflects where the business and its marketing is headed.

The country has also proven to be a good source of digital talent for where the company’s growth projections and main target audience are located – the emerging markets of Asia, Latin America, and Middle East.

Because Lenovo wants to reach out to the 18-to-34 year old demographic, young adults that spend the bulk of their time and activities on the Internet, the company is now committed to shift its marketing efforts in digital and social to support branding and marketing initiatives. However, he declined to give specific figures on its investments.

To facilitate the hiring process, Lenovo has hired Xpand Group, a technology recruitment agency to source for digital and social savvy candidates.

As Kaul noted, there is “a lot of fluff” in the market and his trip to Singapore is to seek the “thinkers and doers” who can understand the nuances and emerging technologies as well as determine what is important from an integrated digital marketing standpoint.

While Lenovo’s existing social media team looks after internal social governance and marketing based in North Carolina in the United States, it is also looking to aggressively expand its team to the new hub.

Nano Serwich, Lenovo’s social media manager, said she expects the new team to tap cutting edge technology in social media to execute marketing campaigns, monitor buzz, and form support teams dedicated to answer technical questions on social channels.

Since Lenovo’s Facebook strategy uses Buddy Media to execute localized campaigns from country to regional levels, it will also be seeking a Facebook Buddy Media lead based in Singapore.

Although Lenovo is building a team of digital and social media talents in-house, it will not replace existing agency relations.

Kaul pointed out that one of the challenges Lenovo experiences is the gap in bringing strong agency partners from all markets to cut down the speed to market.

The Singapore-based hub is intended to fill the gap by forming a network of agency partners with specialized skills to service its marketing teams worldwide.

In January, Lenovo entered a joint venture with Japan’s top PC company NEC to form the largest PC group in Japan. Separately, Lenovo launched a mobile Internet business group to focus on creating mobile Internet devices that include tablets and smartphones as well as devices in new categories like cloud computing, smart TV, and digital homes.

Tags: Lenovo

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About the Author

Adaline Lau, ClickZ Asia editor, oversees day-to-day editorial operations covering digital marketing from search to social media, mobile to analytics in the region. Before ClickZ, she was senior reporter at Marketing Magazine and has worked as a journalist for The Singapore Marketer and Asia Pacific Broadcasting. Add Adaline to your circle on Google+.

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