It may only be April but the industry awards season is already well underway and Ketchum has had plenty of reasons to celebrate receiving two top honors in the space of a week!

The Holmes Report, one of the most influential global monitors of the PR industry, has named Ketchum Greater China Consultancy of the Year for 2011. Alongside our recent 30th anniversary celebrations and Ketchum’s now majority ownership stake in the Greater China operations, the Report cited a bevy of local, regional and global account wins that flagged an outstanding performance from the agency in the region this year. Ketchum was also recognized at the Hong Kong PR Awards 2010 claiming the title for Award of Excellence - Integrated Marketing Campaign for an end-to-end PR program for its retainer client Lenovo. To add to the special moment, Ketchum was the only PR agency to collect an Award of Excellence in the overall competition, the highest accolade bestowed in this award scheme. The award competition, first ever in Hong Kong, was organized by the Hong Kong Public Relations Professionals’ Association. 

 The Hong Kong Computer and Communications Festival (HKCCF) is the most coveted platform for mass market IT and consumer electronics in Hong Kong. For Lenovo, leader of the PC market in Hong Kong, the Expo serves as an excellent promotion and sales platform. To support the company’s presence at the Expo an impactful integrated marketing campaign was required. Clear goals were set to achieve pre-determined sales targets, visitor count, and message pull-through. Metrics were set up to require superlative phrases such as “first”, “leading”, “best”, “busiest”, and “biggest” to appear in all marketing collaterals, booth design, media exposures, and online discussions to plant the perception of Lenovo’s market leadership in consumers’ minds. A minimum of 40% of all exposures were expected to carry such language. Lenovo wanted to see a 60% year-on-year growth in media exposure relating to HKCCF and at least a 15% increase in membership at the Lenovo Hong Kong Facebook fans page. All marketing and communications efforts, booth design and visitor events were linked under the theme Number One to amplify and reinforce Lenovo’s leadership position. A highly visual approach was adopted for all media outreach to ensure the brand stood out from brief brand name and product descriptions in the media coverage. The IdeaPad Y560d, the industry’s first 3D, full-multimedia consumer notebook, was selected as Lenovo’s Hero Product at the Expo. Other tactical programs included pre-event media advisories, pre-event product reviews, pre-opening media tour, day one press launch, day two event and photo release as well as media interviews. To engage online users and drive word of mouth, the latest Expo updates were fed to Lenovo fans on Facebook and incentive games were used to ensure high participation. The popular “Photo Competition with No.1” required Lenovo Facebook fans to visit the Lenovo booth at the Expo, and take a photo with a “Number 1” reference. Entries were posted on the Lenovo fans page and the entry with the most “likes” won an IdeaPad V360 notebook. This program was instrumental not only in promoting Lenovo’s presence at the Expo online, but increasing the fan base significantly as postings were shared amongst friends. The results: a 253.5% year-on-year increase in media coverage (99 reports in total in print and online); a 91.8% key message pull-through rate and 46.5% of all print and online coverage carried the desired superlative phrases to reinforce Lenovo’s leadership position. The IdeaPad Y560d was sold out by the morning of the second day. Facebook fans increased by more than 20% over the campaign period.