In order to boost its image as a brand for the young people and increase the popularity of its smartphones, Lenovo chooses marathon as a starting point to focus on its target users’ lifestyles. LeFun Run is a social application for runners with GPS location services and social sharing function. The GPS records your running route, so you can share your route with other runners around you on Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, renren.com and WeChat after you finish running. In addition, the GPS webcast broadcasts these ordinary people’s marathons in real-time for other ordinary people to see.

Lenovo made use of the most popular microbloggers, experts and opinion leaders on Sina Weibo, the official microblog of Lenovo, the microblog of CCTV sports channel and the marathon events, and personal microblogs of runners to convey to the young people why exercises are necessary and the new concept of social marathon events. Lenovo also worked with the largest online portal websites, video sharing websites and social networking websites targeted at young people to advertise the concept of social sports and encourage more people to join. In the meantime, Lenovo used a new marketing platform WeChat to release information and event photos in order to attract people to the webcast page. By working with the organizing committees, Lenovo sent EDM to all runners participating in the race; Lenovo also used the screens to display the webcast and Lenovo smartphones.

Lenovo marathon GPS webcast 2012 took place in the Beijing International Marathon on November 25, 2012, the Shanghai International Marathon on December 2, 2012 and the Xiamen International Marathon on January 5, 2013. On the Lenovo marathon webcast page, all users can trace the location of runners with LeFun Run app on through satellite maps, see their photos and vote for them online. All GPS captured blogs along the route were integrated into this page, where runners, spectators and internet users shared with one another what they thought about the race. From that moment on, marathon was not just about African athletes pushing hard for the finish line as shown live on TV or accidents reported by traditional media. The small interesting and moving stories about ordinary people that happened during the race were presented.

CCTV sports channel had a story about the Lenovo LeFun Run GPS marathon webcast in a marathon-themed program. Famous magazines such as ELLE and Runner’s World devoted significant coverage to Lenovo’s marathon marketing and showed their appreciation and support. It has been downloaded more than a million times in the first 6 months since it was launched.

More and more young people active on Weibo have started using this app to jog and share their routes and thoughts. Interactions like this have encouraged more people to start running and a healthy way of life.

After three marathon events, the GPS integrated social webcast pioneered by Lenovo has registered a total of 195,000 page views, about 12,590 interactions and more than 1,400 kilometers covered by VIP runners.