Lenovo: Standing out from the crowd on Time Square!

Date published: 12-2022 | Category: Our work

Challenge: How to Make a Brand Relevant in The Most Saturated Point of Advertising on The Planet?

In an intoxicated world, where urban citizens are exposed to more than 40 thousand pieces of content per day, including +12k advertising messages, the big question is how to stand out from the undifferentiated shelf and be noticed. Unless your campaign contains a big idea, nowadays it will pass like a ship in the night. This especially applies to offline communications now that people seem to be paying more attention to their smartphones and their digital lives than to their real offline existences. We needed a disruptive idea to break into people’s saturated attention and make them interested in watching and sharing our message to amplify our marketing efforts.

Solution: A Multi-Screen Digital Campaign in Times Square, Why Not?

We decided to go big and challenge the paradigms of traditional media. In New York City’s iconic Time Square, the hottest spot for advertising on earth, we hacked the media and disrupted into people’s lives, making them stop, watch, and share with an omnichannel marketing activation for the launch of the new Lenovo line of products using gamification principles.

People passing by had to stop to see our advertising in a multi-billboard animated campaign for the chance of winning one Lenovo product. Using their smartphones’ cameras, they had to wait and capture the image of the new products to appear on screen, and be the first to post the picture in their social media channels using our username and hashtags. A very simple yet powerful amplification idea.

Results: A Local Billboard Turned Into a Game Turned Into a Global Digital Campaign

Through the strategic use of geo-localized paid media, a strong onsite team prompting people to participate, and lots of creativity and fun, SquareOnTime got amazing results on digital awareness and relevance:

• +1 million views on social media
• 86% of digital mentions earned (not paid) and outside our proprietary channels
• People from 98 different countries joined the conversation around the campaign and the new Lenovo products.

Awards

SquareOnTime was awarded with two WINA Awards in 2018, Gold as best Promo Activation of the year, plus one Silver in the Outdoor Activation category. The campaign was also awarded Gold for Media Innovation in the FEPI awards in their 2019 edition.