On 24 April, just before the May Day holiday, a post titled “Hunting for the Red Laptop Girl for seven days without eating or drinking” was published at the Soho Digital Community.
The thread, which has accumulated 2,586 replies and 2,157,856 clicks to date, consists of candid snapshots of a pretty girl whom the photographer is stalking. Lenovo’s new ideaPad U110 laptop, in a fashionable red color, appears in practically every picture.
But some bloggers criticized the campaign, calling it a fake cooked up by Lenovo. They also judged it a failed online promotion.
Hecaitou wrote on his blog:
Maybe the girl has tough biceps and has no idea what a “laptop bag” is. And because the “peeper” photographer was equipped a top-level camera, the photos were so clear that people quickly saw through them and recognized the post as Lenovo’s online promotion campaign. So what if they saw through them—the problem was that this operation didn’t raise up any tide online. And even after 28 April, when major websites and BBSs carried out promotions, it didn’t make waves.
- The original post on Sohu (Chinese): Hunting for Red laptop girl for seven days without diet
- Hecaitou’s blog (Chinese): The Lenovo red laptop girl incident
- Sonia’s Buzz (Chinese): Lenovo laptop girl – a failed online promotion