Lenovo appoints Stagwell Agency Assembly & Dentsu as media agencies of record

Lenovo has announced the appointment of Stagwell Agency Assembly and Dentsu as its new global paid media agencies of record.

The new appointments are part of a broader global marketing transformation vision that will accelerate Lenovo’s digital-first strategies, focus work around key centres of excellence, and continue advancing Lenovo’s global marketing effectiveness through an evolution of the media agency partnership model.

Effective immediately, Assembly and Dentsu will work with Lenovo in overseeing media strategy and planning, advertising operations, and performance measurement.

Assembly will support Lenovo in its geographical markets across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), North America (NA) and Latin America (LAS), Dentsu will cover Lenovo’s Asia Pacific (AP) markets.

Performics, a Publicis Groupe agency, will retain the paid media business for Lenovo in China and the company’s global e-commerce business. The entire pitch management process was supported by independent global media advisors, MediaSense.

Lenovo’s Global Media Strategy Center of Excellence (COE)

Lenovo has pioneered the development of its own Global Media Strategy COE, which will be spearheaded by its in-house and agency partner teams. Lenovo’s new Global Media Strategy COE hybrid operating model is designed for the right internal and external resources to be deployed in addressing each specific need.

Bringing together global talent, this group is tasked with managing all aspects of Lenovo’s paid media advertising operations via a digital-first, hybrid operating model, and will work with Assembly, Dentsu, and Performics to achieve increased transparency in areas such as measurement, data and analytics; in-house/agency collaboration; and greater mobilisation of data to understand and enhance the customer decision journey.

As part of the remit, Assembly, Dentsu, and Performics will work alongside Lenovo’s Global Media Strategy COE on global media strategy and planning as well as advertising operations. They will also take the lead on performance measurement. Finally, investment, analytics, media, and tech contracts will be handled directly by Lenovo’s in-house teams, with support from agency partners.

As per Lenovo, these appointments are in response to a changing global marketplace. With the generational emergence of fully digital natives, the competition to reach audiences and engage them with messages relevant to them is tightening quickly.

This trend has also fragmented the digital ecosystem, engendering the rise of more non-traditional digital platforms such as new gaming and esports communities, retail media platforms and the metaverse – calling for a greater specialization in skills. Coupled with the rise of remote work in the past few years and its impact on the growth of digital platforms, the new playing field has sparked Lenovo’s re-evaluation of the ways in which the technology leader can take greater advantage of its globe-spanning talent through upskilling and evolution of its paid media function.

“As the technology and marketing industries undergo a profound transformation in an increasingly fragmented digital ecosystem, marketing needs to adapt and modernize as we navigate this new environment,” said Gina Qiao, Senior Vice-President and Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Lenovo. “We look forward to working with our new agency partners to continue innovating how and where we tell Lenovo’s vision of smarter technology for all, and to further advance the industry.”

“Assembly and Dentsu impressed us with their vision, talent, and expertise in strong data and technology-driven capabilities – which will play a major role in strengthening our new hybrid global marketing infrastructure. Through our new agency partnerships, we’re taking the next step in our journey to evolve Lenovo’s global marketing capabilities to reshape the way we engage with customers and audiences,” commented Emily Ketchen, Vice-President and Chief Marketing Office of Intelligent Devices Group at Lenovo.  

“As key players in Lenovo’s new Global Media Strategy Center of Excellence, Assembly, Dentsu, and Performics will complement our in-house expertise to help own and manage transparency over the entire media value chain. We also look forward to collaborating with them to maximise our campaign performance, improve media planning and optimization, and directly manage across paid media, tech and data,” said Alberto Spinelli, Head of Global Media Strategy and EMEA Chief Marketing Officer at Lenovo.

“We’re delighted to be working with Lenovo to deliver even more effective marketing solutions that drive growth to their business globally,” said James Townsend, Global CEO at Assembly and Global CEO of Stagwell Media Network. “Together, alongside Lenovo’s Global Media Strategy Center of Excellence, we will work to accelerate and modernise Lenovo’s marketing capabilities through data, technology and a digitally led approach.”

Michael McLaren, EVP, High-Tech/B2B at dentsu and Global CEO of Merkle B2B, said, “Lenovo’s hybrid in-house model is a data and technology solution with a rich first-party data set that we envision will pair perfectly well with our adtech capabilities. We are proud to be entrusted with Lenovo’s paid media business and look forward to working collaboratively with them on their marketing acceleration journey.”   

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