PC giant Lenovo recently launched a new campaign in China for the ThinkPad Edge range of PC. The campaign rides on the classic “red stick” design of the “TrackPoint” and brings to life the brand personality of focused creativity. Quite an ambitious task since it seems like they are trying to unite not only the heritage of the brand but also to communicate a new product offering. What had naturally become the platform for Lenovo’s brand message was probably also from the great Chinese name it had created.

Successful Chinese brand names often attach a strong association with the product. The brand name often implies what the brand stands for and hence become an effective platform for brand communications. There are numerous successful Chinese brand names and two of the classic examples include Revlon 露华浓 (lù huá nóng) that literally means “glimmering with the spring dew” and is also inspired by a verse of one of the legendary poet Li Bai (李白); and BMW宝马 (bǎomǎ), meaning appropriately “treasure horse”.

“Lenovo” is a blend of “Le-” (from Legend) and “novo”, pseudo-Latin for “new”. The Chinese name联想 (pronounced liánxiǎng) means “connected thinking” that also implies the “unification” of imagination and creativity. The Chinese name not only holistically reflecting the sound of the English “Lenovo”, it also succinctly sums up the worldsourcing “innovation triangle” strategy of the company that unites the best talents from different countries from US (research and product planning), Japan (hardware design) and China (manufacturing and product testing).

In November 2009, Lenovo Group announced its intention to purchase Lenovo Mobile Communication Technology. The strategy reflects the worldwide trend of convergence between the personal computing and mobile handset industry and will help diversify Lenovo’s business. The task of creating a truly cohering message across all their product lines will become the next big challenge.

Image downloaded from the ThinkPad Edge web site.