Lenovo CMO Bhaskar Choudhuri: 'Bring the consumer's voice to the table and you'll be irreplaceable'

  Pressure is a constant in Bhaskar Choudhuri’s decades-long career.

He spent 14 years at Cadbury before making the move from chocolates to chips. Since then, he's rebooted Lenovo’s brand in India and now orchestrates an expanded Asia-Pacific mandate that spans PCs, servers, storage, Motorola, and services. In his world, pressure is not a burden to be managed but a force of nature—especially for a generation that, as he puts it, believes “pressure brings out their best.”

Over the past few years at Lenovo, Choudhuri has helped steer the company through some of its most demanding chapters. From repositioning Lenovo to younger Indians with the “Damn the Odds” campaign to overseeing the meticulous, performance-driven rebuild of Motorola in markets including Japan, he's built a marketing stack where word-of-mouth and after-sales experience are now as powerful as any media buy.

To him, the fundamentals of marketing have not changed, even if everything around them has. Tech marketing, he argues, lives on the edge, with shorter cycles, faster launches, and a bias towards product pushes. It's also fast breaking out of its niche and stepping into the mainstream.

Take the 2026 World Cup, for example. As FIFA’s first-ever technology sponsor, Lenovo plays a major role in the most emotionally charged aspect of football: refereeing decisions. His job? To craft campaigns that don’t just showcase Lenovo’s innovation, but spotlight how indispensable it is on the global stage.

“You can imagine the intensity if any crucial decision gets questioned during a World Cup game,” he says. To Choudhuri, these high-stakes moments become proof points in a broader brand narrative where Lenovo’s technology underwrites trust, fairness, and fan confidence. Given the scale and latency challenges of what he calls “the most complex technology broadcast ever,” Lenovo’s role is “not just as a sponsor, but as part of the very muscle and brain of how the tournament is conducted.”

For young marketers starting out in a volatile market, Choudhuri urges them to bring an outside-in perspective into rooms dominated by numbers, channels, and dashboards.

“We are uniquely positioned to bring the voice of the customer or consumer to the table, and I believe that is the true role of marketing,” he adds. "Stay true to that commitment and you’ll  find yourself truly irreplaceable."

See the full interview below:

1. What is the single biggest challenge and opportunity facing Lenovo in 2026, and how are you preparing to address them?

Our biggest challenge and opportunity lie in how we deal with AI. How do we position ourselves as a deliverer of AI, as opposed to most brands that are focused on how to use AI to simplify their processes, make them more efficient, and improve their marketing?

We are providers of powerful AI-enabled services and solutions. Now, AI is currently at risk of being viewed as something of a bubble, because people are getting impatient with its progress—or lack thereof. Many say, “We’ve heard a lot about it, but in terms of real business delivery, it’s not living up to the hype.” 

So how can we, as a technology services and devices provider, simplify the benefits of AI and communicate them in truly human terms? I use the word human deliberately, because that message is equally important for both our consumer audience and our B2B ecosystem—customers, partners, and channel partners alike. It has to be rooted in human insight and designed either to solve a human problem or to open the doors of imagination to a human opportunity. 

Choudhuri at FIFA HQ in Switzerland.

2. What marketing capabilities are you prioritising, and which areas are getting a cut?

In the absence of truly mass media being able to deliver a message effectively, what we’re discovering is that the tactile, face-to-face engagement that events offer, combined with the ability to smartly and directly target audiences, is incredibly valuable. 

This is particularly true for B2B, where you can’t “spray and pray” across huge audience segments. Events allow us to talk about our technology in a much more meaningful, comprehensible, and dialog-driven manner than most conventional marketing platforms. So that’s one area we’re relooking at, revising, and possibly investing in more globally.

We made a very bold, even epochal, decision to become a technology partner for FIFA. We’re beginning to communicate that partnership by taking over The Sphere in Las Vegas during one of our marquee events, Tech World. 

A 30-second or 60-second spot may not always be enough, especially given the breadth of our portfolio. Our offerings often require both more time and a more engaged audience to communicate effectively. 

There’s also some rethinking happening around programmatic buys—specifically regarding the efficiency and effectiveness they bring to the table. Social media, as always, continues to evolve; certain ad formats perform better than others, and we’re constantly rediscovering what works. 

On the consumer side, there’s a notable rediscovery of the importance of out-of-home advertising, especially given the ongoing conversation about reach versus attentive reach—and how much of that reach is actually captive. Captive environments, where you truly have the audience’s attention, contrast sharply with digital spaces where people may be scrolling casually and only half-engaged. 

3. Is generative AI changing your marketing function? Can you share specific examples of its impact on a recent campaign or initiative?

One example is from one of our business units, where we analysed all our past creative assets and built our own proprietary data bank, and ultimately, our own generative AI platform, which we call Studio AI. One of the biggest challenges in using Gen AI for creative development is the issue of ownership and originality, since many images and videos generated may not be proprietary to the brand. That opens up risks around reuse and potential plagiarism. 

However, when you have your own customised, proprietary image and video bank, that challenge is eliminated. Studio AI is our attempt to deliver creatives at scale and speed using our own owned material and database. 

3. How has the nature of tech marketing changed? What are the most important parts of the strategy when marketing to both B2B and B2C?

Very few technology brands actually doing brand-level campaigns; most revolve around products. More often than not, the focus is on a new product launch. You don’t really have long-running campaigns for products whose life cycles last for decades. Managing such short life cycles and keeping interest alive—appealing first to early adopters and then to broader audiences—requires a wide range of marketing tactics. These go beyond broadcast media to include engagement, social, influencer marketing, and tech reviewers. It’s a very different approach compared to the traditional CPG way of managing product lifecycles. 

What makes this space even more interesting is that the frequency of product launches enables much faster test-and-learn cycles. It allows you to stay right at the cutting edge of changes, especially in how media evolves and how audiences engage with new formats. Despite all the predictions about which channels or tools will become obsolete, the fundamentals of marketing haven’t changed.

The importance of after-sales service, recommendations, and even informal net promoter score has become crucial. In fact, it’s a core marketing lever in itself. If you look at the strong comeback of Motorola, I’d attribute much of it to powerful word-of-mouth. Beyond conventional marketing and media tactics, it’s the great product experience that has driven organic advocacy, leading to more adoption and stronger brand growth. 

4. CMOs are under increasing pressure to deliver maximum value for every dollar spent. In today’s volatile market, how can agency-client relationships/partnerships evolve to deliver maximum measurable value?

The best relationships are the ones that move beyond transactional briefs and the transactional description of briefs that simply say: “We need a campaign.” The most valuable relationships are those rooted in fundamental conversations about the business issue or opportunity you’re trying to solve. 

Agencies that go beyond their scope to truly understand the business problem are the ones that tend to do well. On the other hand, if you treat it conventionally as just a brief and come back with a media plan or an ad campaign, there’s little differentiation. You’ll find eight or ten agencies capable of doing the same job, and several willing to do it for a lower price. 

For marketers, too, our ability to engage with business leaders, and uniquely, to take some ownership of analytics, can help address questions around marketing ROI and effectiveness. We shouldn’t forget to ask counter-questions either. Taking a more holistic business view, rather than restricting ourselves to purely marketing metrics, leads to richer dialogue, deeper discussions, and greater mutual respect on both sides of the table.

5. Talk about a campaign outside your brands that truly inspired you, and what lessons could you apply to your own portfolio?

The campaign by my friend, Lucinda Barlow, who leads international marketing for Uber. There's a wonderful Uber Eats campaign she’s been running with executions across the globe. The most recent one I saw was what she did in Spain. 

One of the reasons I like this campaign is how it builds on the proposition of making almost anything available anywhere, at any time. The way they’ve created local executions of that idea is different in Spain versus Hong Kong versus India, is a great example of what it truly means to run a campaign, not just produce a single creative or ad. 

6. In a volatile market defined by job cuts and consolidations, what’s your advice to an entry-level marketer starting their journey today?

Marketing can often become a bit of a pain during difficult times, but it’s in those difficult times that failures often teach us the best lessons. We are uniquely positioned to bring the voice of the customer or consumer to the table, and I believe that is the true role of marketing. 

If we remember this role day in and day out, or even dedicate some time to it once a week, it becomes very difficult to replace you. If you can consistently bring the consumer’s or customer’s voice back to the table, you’ll be invaluable to the organization you serve. If you stay true to that commitment, you'll find yourself truly irreplaceable. 

7. Name another brand (can’t be yours) with a fantastic customer experience that you really admire. What element of their approach do you find most compelling? 

What I find wonderful about Dyson is that they seem to spend as much effort and attention on the post-purchase journey as they do on the purchase journey.

Their attention to detail, responsiveness, and genuine desire to treat every issue as a consumer problem they’re eager to solve make their approach feel authentic, unlike many other brands in the space. For Dyson, it’s never a case of “fire and forget” once the sale is made. They remain invested in the customer and any problems or issues that person might experience with the product long after purchase. It’s very authentic in that sense. 

Choudhuri with his family.

8. Tell us something people might not know about you. Could be a hidden talent, passion, or even trivia.

I picked up was tennis at quite a late age. I’ve actually become a fairly passionate player. I may not be a great player, or even a good one, but whatever I lack in skill, I try to make up for with passion. Ivan Lendl was my hero. He was a bit of a “beaten hero” because, if I remember correctly, he never won Wimbledon. In recent years, it’s been Federer, because in terms of visual delight no one comes close to him.

On a related note, I’ve always been a huge fan of the Brazilian football team. Even though the team may be rebuilding and not having the best of times, the sheer joy that players like Ronaldinho brought is incomparable—something that can’t be matched even by players who’ve won more titles. That passion remains. 

When it comes to poetry, it’s William Butler Yeats whom I really look up to and enjoy reading the most. 

9. What keeps you up at night as a CMO?

More often than not, it’s people rather than technology or any of the other factors we’ve discussed. The real question is: are you able to provide the best possible opportunities to most of your team, if not all? It’s humanly impossible to do it all the time for everyone, but are you truly recognising and viewing your talent differently from how your competitors do? 

Beyond all the technology and tactics we’ve talked about, our biggest differentiator remains people. If you have a great team, there’s a very, very good chance you’ll win. And if you don’t, unfortunately, the opposite is also true. 

Source: Campaign Asia-Pacific