A Rundown On The Launch Of The World’s First Layered Smartphone Vibe X2

The day has been good for Chinese technology giant Lenovo – first the positive second quarter results and later in the day the company launched it’s much talked about “world’s first layered smartphone” – Vibe X2.

Over the last three days, Lighthouse Insights has been covering the countdown to the launch quite extensively (check the daily snapshots of the campaign here). Lenovo had launched the #VibeUpMylife digital campaign – a 72 hour art-a-thon where fans were invited to share their photos and challenge the brand to add a desired layer to it.

A team of 10 Rad artists along with the tech and social media team have been on a roll, taking on user challenges head on. With the help of its digital agency Experience Commerce, Lenovo has been building social media buzz for the world’s first layered smartphone, by adding layers onto users’ photos. (Find out how art, social and tech came together to make the 72 hour art-a-thon possible.)

As I write this in the lounge of Le Meridien, Delhi; my Twitter feed is showing me the lovely creative work by Lenovo India. We also have a collection of some of the vibed up photos here and here.

When I received an invite to the launch, the excitement to see the world’s first layered phone got the better of me, and I just couldn’t refuse. The drive from the airport to the venue wasn’t a crazy one, as expected from the city of Delhi, thanks to the Nanak jayanthi holiday. By 2 in the afternoon the basement lobby started filling up and by 2:30 everyone had taken their seats at the event. The launch saw the most enthusiastic crowd with tech bloggers, print and media folks.

J.D. Howard – Head of Lenovo AP Sales

With a loud hello, Howard took the stage that glittered with the colors of Lenovo. He started with the day’s good news of the company’s quarterly results and talked about the two big acquisitions by Lenovo some time ago. However, the Motorola buy out from Google brought a grin to Howard’s face, as it was a bit tired as stated by him.

Emphasizing on the Motorola deal that has made Lenovo the third largest producer of smartphones, Howard informed that India has been a good market for Lenovo but US and Latin America wasn’t great so acquiring Motorola gave the company a stronger footprint. The other two reasons were the ongoing support and the talent at Motorola that matched the culture of Lenovo.

Moving ahead Howard talked about how Lenovo has evolved from being the leader in PC market to the fastest growing smartphone company.

Sudhin Mathur – Director Smartphones Lenovo India

Sudhin was next on stage to talk about the Indian journey and he started by talking about the Vibe smartphones launched last year in India. He spoke about what Vibe means to this generation who are the customers for the Vibe section.

“Vibe has been inspired by customers who love to be trendsetters,“ he said. “To match the excitement of the Vibe generation – #VibeUpMyLife digital campaign was launched which has received 1000 plus entries in less than 48 hours from the start of the campaign.”

The audience was then taken through a quick introduction about the campaign and given a glimpse of the kind of creative challenges received and how the brand surprised fans by adding exciting layers.

Talking more about the digital campaign, Bhaskar Choudhuri, Director Marketing at Lenovo informed over a phone call from his Bangalore office that it was a teaser launch to create buzz for its flagship product. “We wanted to share the layer design story since the phone is the world’s first layered phone and customers or the millennials today are adding layers to their life to make it exciting and vibrant. So that’s how the idea came up of adding a new layer to photos.”

Anuj Sharma – Marketing India Head Smartphones

Anuj was next and the last person to take over the stage along with Sudhin to take through the details of the phone and the final reveal. Anuj emphasized about the design and innovation that Lenovo is bringing to the market with the first layered phone in the world with a video sneak peek.

But what is the inspiration behind the layered phone, was the apt question for Anuj from Sudhin “It is inspired by nature, layers stand out whether in nature or fashion”, added Anuj while asking the audience how boring would a rainbow be if it had just one colour or layer.

Besides design, Anuj informed the audience that the phone has the fastest chip on the block. He also shared some more interesting specs that makes the device stand out in the congested market of smartphones.

One feature that attracted me besides the device having a fast processor, is the camera that is on all the time to help capture moments that generally get missed.

Finally it was the time to reveal the smartphone with a lot of brains, as stated by Anuj. Priced at Rs. 19,999/- the Vibe X2 is a device that is competitive and offering some innovative specs. While we have to wait for the review from the mobile bloggers to get a verdict on all tech aspects, we at Lighthouse Insights believe the digital teaser campaign was spot on. “The digital campaign has been really exciting and the social media buzz has been great. All thanks to our digital agency for executing the live campaign at such a scale,” Bhaskar added.

The phone comes out on the 10^th exclusively on Flipkart, would you go for it?