Tech World is Lenovo’s annual flagship event that brings together industry leaders, global CEOs, customers, and partners to discuss cutting-edge technology trends and showcase Lenovo’s vision for the future.
“AI for All” was the theme for this past year’s Tech World event which took place on Oct. 24th in Austin, Texas. AI for All stems from Lenovo’s commitment to continue driving AI forward and making AI accessible to everyone – from individuals to enterprises to our planet.
One of the ways we wanted to tell our AI for All and Tech World story was through the lens of diverse influencers/creators with a few primary objectives in mind:
Drive brand awareness, engagement, and meaningful conversation leading up to and throughout the event
Generate high-quality content that resonates with our target audience and other niche audiences
Integrate select influencers into the run of show and keynote
Establish connections and build direct relationships between Lenovo and the creators
For the first time, Lenovo invited 20 talented and diverse creators – bringing together a mix of relevant creatives, gamers, techies, street interviewers, and AI advocates. During the selection process, we identified creators in the tech and AI space but also sourced creators who stepped outside of our “tech enthusiast” criteria to reach new audiences.
To generate excitement and buzz prior to Tech World, all creators arrived in Austin a day or two early to capture teaser content documenting their travels, shots of the event venue, and highlights from our welcome party the night before the big event. Throughout our one-day event, creators creatively and authentically captured Tech World’s biggest moments and with a cohesive approval process in place, content was shared in real-time from the event.
Beyond leveraging their platforms to craft compelling branded content, we went outside of traditional partnerships by integrating select creators into our run of show and keynote which was also livestreamed on X, LinkedIn, and YouTube. This approach added unique perspectives to the keynote content line-up, helped humanize technical concepts, and kept energy levels high ensuring viewers and attendees remained engaged throughout the keynote.
Here is a snapshot of how we integrated creators into the run of show pre, during, and post keynote.
Right before the keynote started, we did an AI song challenge between two creators that was filmed in real-time on the livestream and main stage screens. Prior to the event, one creator used a Lenovo workstation to compose a Tech World inspired song where one chorus was written by them and the other chorus was written by AI. We played both parts of the song and the other creator and the audience had to guess which one was which.
We had an energetic creator act as a “roving reporter” during several keynote transitions to generate excitement from the show floor around our immersive and interactive demos enticing the audience to check them out post-keynote.
Two creators participated in three tech demos on-stage, adding humor and liveliness to the demonstrations.
An influencer led a fireside chat with our CTO around Lenovo’s point of view on Hybrid AI and helped break down complex concepts making them relatable and easy to understand to the audience.
During one of the transition breaks, we played a pre-recorded video of one of our creators (who is a digital fashion artist) explaining how they used AI and Lenovo technology to create a stylish Tech World inspired crewneck. At the end of the video, the creator gave a cue to the MC of our event and the MC walked out onstage wearing the crewneck which resulted in a big round of applause and an energy booster for the crowd.
Post keynote, we identified content collaboration/engagement opportunities for creators to engage with executives including our Chairman and CEO.
Bringing a big group of creators together fostered a strong sense of community and eagerness to collaborate with each other and Lenovo. They brainstormed content ideas, exchanged advice, and supported each other’s content by offering to be in it and commenting on each other’s live posts. Their cross-collaboration helped reach larger audiences and garner interest and engagement from their fans. The activation also enabled Lenovo to build direct relationships and connections with each creator, which led to many creators asking us to do collaboration posts, creating added value content, and being lenient with whitelisting fees.
Our biggest creator activation to date successfully leveraged the power of diverse voices to not only create captivating content but also strengthen audience engagement and elevate our Tech World and AI for All narrative.
Collectively, the creators published 342 social posts across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube generating 58M video views, 59M impressions, and 1.3M engagements.
We showed our appreciation for the creators attending Tech World by adding thoughtful touches to make them feel valued and supported. We allowed them to bring a +1, provided them with a Lenovo product of their choosing, had welcome swag bags waiting for them in their rooms with a handwritten note, welcomed them with a champagne toast, and secured special moments for them – from inviting them to exclusive parties, hosting a meet and greet with a celebrity at our welcome reception, to a 1:1 meet and greet with our Chairman and CEO. These little tokens of gratitude went a long way and by the end of the event, every creator provided additional story frames above their contracted deliverables along with several in-feed posts that generated an additional 4M video views and 150K engagements. Overall, the campaign over-delivered on the number of contracted posts by 41% across Instagram and TikTok. Sentiment across all content was extremely positive and post-survey revealed all 20 creators are very interested in partnering with Lenovo again.
