Lenovo: Immersive CX on Time Square

Date published: 12-2022 | Category: Our work

Challenge: how do you make a brand relevant in the hottest spot for advertising on the planet?

In a dynamic world, where urban citizens are exposed to more than 40 thousand pieces of content per day, including more than 12k advertising messages, the big question is how to stand out and be noticed. Unless your campaign contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night! This especially applies to offline communications now that people pay more attention to their smartphones and their digital lives. A disruptive idea is essential to grab people’s already saturated attention and get them to watch and share marketing messages.

Solution: a multi-screen digital campaign on 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 people’s lives, making them stop, watch, and share with an omnichannel marketing activation for the launch of Lenovo’s new product line, using gamification principles.

People passing by had to stop to see our advertising in a multi-billboard animated campaign for the chance of winning a 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 specific hashtags. A very simple yet powerful amplification idea. The campaign was called SquareOnTime.

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 proprietary channels
• People from 98 different countries joined the conversation on social media around the campaign and the new Lenovo products

Awards

SquareOnTime won two WINA Awards – Gold as best Promo Activation of the year, plus Silver in the Outdoor Activation category. The campaign was also awarded Gold for Media Innovation at the FEPI awards.