Lenovo, the Chinese giant which acquired IBM's PC business a year ago, is aggressively positioning its ThinkPad brand of notebook products for the small and medium business customers in India.
The company, which claims to be quite strong in the enterprise segment for the ThinkPad range of products, is rolling out a new series of advertisement campaigns and marketing initiatives to tap the opportunities in the growing SMB sector.
Ajay Mittal, vice-president, brand & marketing, Lenovo India, said: "With the changing marketplace, we feel that the ThinkPad range of notebooks, which were highly successful among the enterprise customers due to their robustness, have got enough capabilities and features to tap the SMB market in India."
The campaign was aimed at building a strong linkage between the ThinkPad and the SMB customers whose primary requirements were business-centric, he added.
At present, Lenovo has four product ranges under its ThinkPad brand of notebooks. At the lower-end, the company has the 'R' series and 'Z' series of notebooks in the price range of Rs 35,000 to Rs 70,000 depending upon the specifications.
The 'T' and 'X' series of notebooks are targeted more at the high-end business class customers with additional features, and the prices vary from Rs 85,000 to Rs 130,000. Besides, the company has Lenovo 3000 products targeted at individual customers and lower-end SMBs.
Mittal said the ThinkPad range of products had the robustness required for a business user as well as many entertainment features such as high-value audio system, movie and media card user, memory card user from camera and s-video out (enables to watch TV) for the SMB customers.
"These features are mainly required by the low-end SMB users who want a mix of business features and certain entertainment features," he added.
As part of the awareness initiative, Lenovo has decided to roll out a series of advertisement campaigns in the print and online media. It targets the young Indian achievers who represent the SMB class and are quite trendy in their selection of notebooks.
The company has also launched a website, which engages the visitors to be involved in initiatives such as quiz and 'global quotient' contest. At present, the company is using electronic media as a means to advertise Lenovo 3000 series of notebooks, since the target audience mainly comprises home users and individual customers.
The company has also roped in Bollywood icons Saif Ali Khan and Soha Ali Khan as its brand ambassadors. Besides, Mittal said the company was going in for a lot of engagements with the channel partners.
"We are basically ensuring that our channel partners are well aware of our products and they understand the products well before communicating to the customers," he added.
