What Would Lenovo Do?

According to a survey conducted by PC maker Lenovo, only three out of ten people recognize the Lenovo name. So how does Lenovo plan to fix that?

 

 

 

By miniaturizing a doctor of osteopathy?

 

 

No. D’oh!

 

“For those who do” (that voodoo that they do so well).

 

Accelerated Marketing Strategies explains the thinking behind the slogan:

What Saatchi [&] Saatchi/Lenovo came up with is the “For those who do!” campaign, which will come in three phases starting this May. The first phase of the “For those who do!” campaign will be a declaration of what Lenovo is. Phase two will be product proof showcasing Lenovo technology. The last phase is called people proof, showing what people can do with Lenovo technology.

“People proof”! I ask you, what could possibly go wrong with a themeline like that?

But back to “The Do Inside.” This nounification of “do” represents the latest development in a language-twisting trend in advertising. We’ve seen Charmin’s “Enjoy the Go,” Comcast’s “We Own Faster,” and Crystal’s “Full of Wow.” 

Do, of course, already has noun meanings: it’s short for hairdo and an informal term for a party. And do’s (or dos) and don’ts are lists of preferred and prohibited actions.

As a verb, do also has scatological and sexual meanings that add (unwanted) ambiguity to a phrase like “For Those Who Do.” (Don’t count on Lenovo’s next tagline being “Full of Do.”)

On the Lenovo website, do is both more innocent and more professional. “Whatever You Do, We Can Help You Do It Better, Smarter, Faster” reads one headline. Another declares, “Do Apps Like You’ve Never Done Before.” (Yes, done before, not done them before.) 

I can’t help thinking, though, that Lenovo missed an obvious opportunity. If they’d consulted me, I’d have teamed them up with Lexus, which as we know is all about forward-doing. Or, even better, with Droid, which had so much success with its bare-knuckled bucket of does a couple of years ago. After all, do, a deer, a female deer...

UPDATE, Oct. 7: I just discovered this post from Cranky Creative, the agency responsible for implementing the campaign on the Lenovo sales floor. Here’s a badly proofread kiosk poster:

That should be DOERS, not DOER’S. With only a handful of exceptions, plurals don’t take apostrophes. This is not one of the exceptions.

Comments

[CGHill]

I just had a horrible thought: you don't suppose Lenovo's Chinese overlords think "do" rhymes with "Lenovo," do you?

[Leslie Forman]

I used to work as a copywriter on the Lenovo account for an ad agency in China. I'm not sure which agency came up with these slogans, but I can imagine the dynamic in the meeting. A bunch of non-native English speakers approve this type of thing, based on the way it sounds when translated very literally into Chinese. The Chinese word for "do" (zuo) also has a lot of vague and sexual connotations, so I can't defend them on that front.

Thanks for continually making me laugh!

[Diana Landau]

For those who doo-doo.
I can think of a lot of things I'd like to people-proof.