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 to showcase Lenovo’s “AI for All” vision for the future. With unrivaled expertise in multiple markets such as PCs, mobile devices, datacenters, and turnkey software/solutions - we wanted to show the world that we’re not just ready for AI, we’re driving AI forward.
On October 24th 2023 we gathered in Austin, TX along with key industry partners and top-tier social media creators, to show that we’re taking AI out of abstract headlines and putting its power in the hands of real people, everywhere. We amplified this message through a comprehensive strategy of social, digital, and traditional media.
Tech World is Lenovo’s largest event of the year, where we invite partners, customers, and media to engage with our vision for the future. “AI for All” was the theme for Tech World 2023 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. The event itself consisted of a keynote where top Lenovo executives and partners presented their joint strategy for the following year. Once the keynote ended attendees were invited to experience interactive demos of our current and futurist concept products & solutions. Media coverage was also a large part of our strategy, so we invited hundreds of analysts, press, and influencers to attend pre-briefings (virtually and in-person) regarding the impending announcements.
Promotion for the event started approximately 1 month out with “save the date” teasers, and other creative highlighting the industry-leading keynote speakers in attendance (including CEOs from F1, NVIDIA, AMD, Microsoft, Intel and Qualcomm). In the weeks before Tech World we launched an X live event page, which featured a “heart to remind” campaign where users could opt-in to day-of reminders to attend the event’s livestream. The weekend before we also integrated our event’s messaging into the marketing of a coinciding Lenovo sponsored F1 title race in Austin. Finally, in the last few days before Tech World we captured content throughout the city of Austin featuring our brand and products.
Once October 24th arrived, we were finally ready to fire on all cylinders – starting with livestreaming our keynote on X, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Once the livestream ended, we live-cut and published clips. We also began coverage of our onsite showcase. This included long and short-form videos showing onsite demos featuring existing products, concept devices, and Lenovo-powered software/solutions. This content was published across Lenovo’s X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube accounts. For our corporate TikTok channel we brought one of Lenovo’s creators via an agency to produce unique content for the platform.
Along with Lenovo-owned promotions, we also launched our largest influencer-based event activation to date –inviting 20+ creators onsite. This was designed to reach non-traditional audiences outside of the typical “tech enthusiast” bringing a diverse, entertaining mix of creators who could use their platform to increase our brand awareness. Creators made content leading up to Tech World and onsite during Tech World/F1 Austin – including 5 creators who were integrated directly into the event’s keynote engaging directly with Lenovo’s executive leadership. Also, 5 specially selected fans were invited from across the globe, generating content and buzz within our social media and “Lenovo INsider” advocacy community. Lastly, employees who couldn’t attend were encouraged to join watch parties across multiple countries – and an internal contest was run encouraging them to share specially curated social content using Lenovo Extend, our employee advocacy platform.
The above activations were supported by a paid media campaign on X, TikTok, and Linkedin that focused on engagements and video views across 8+ key markets. We also prioritized teasers ads that encouraged day-of livestream attendance (specifically using heart-to-remind functionality on X) that emphasized growing the total number of concurrent viewers.
It had been years since our last in-person Tech World event, and we were determined to not only make a big return – but to learn from our past few years of virtual events. We met this goal by activating a social media campaign across X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok that achieved 364 million paid impressions, 15.8 million views/replays of our livestream, 90 million paid video views of content captured onsite, and a reach of 2.83 million for content shared using our employee advocacy platform.
We didn’t stop there – with our biggest influencer activation to date, our creators amassed an additional 58 million video views, 59.3 million impressions, and 1.3 million engagements with 342 assets created.
Our social media campaign combined with the attendance of press and media onsite culminated into more than 1.1K total global earned media articles that highlighted Lenovo’s goal of adopting AI in its services, solutions, and devices. This was showcased through positive coverage of our onsite demos such as the wearable phone by CNET and The Verge; the new ‘AI twin’ feature in our laptops and PCs by Fortune Italia; coverage of the Libras Project, a program that translates sign language from Portuguese to real-time speech, by Excelsior; and coverage of our synergistic partnerships with NVIDIA and AMD by Sina Finance and TechRadar Pro. Additional top media coverage included CNBC’s The Exchange, Laptop Mag, Forbes, WIRED Italy, Beijing News, Hong Kong Economic Journal and CRN.
