Olympic Torch Uproar Could Burn Lenovo

Protests May Complicate PC Firm's Plan to Use
Beijing Games for Global Push

By JANE SPENCER
April 14, 2008; Page B1

Richard Gere, riot police and rotten eggs weren't part of Lenovo Group Ltd.'s plan.

The computer company's top designers spent 10 months holed up in its Beijing headquarters drafting looks for the official Olympic torch. The team studied ancient Chinese pottery to come up with the swirling clouds that circle the top of the torch, and painted its base a shade of red that matches the doors of the Forbidden City. Their work, meant to show off Lenovo's design prowess, beat out 300 others in a competition sponsored by the Beijing Olympic committee.

The Chinese firm designed the torch.

These days, the glow of that victory has dimmed. As the relay that brings the torch around the world from Greece to China turned into a duck-and-cover operation in several cities, it has raised questions about whether the estimated $100-million-plus Lenovo has invested in sponsoring the Games and related marketing will provide the kind of massive brand boost the company is counting on. Lenovo, the world's fourth-largest PC maker, is one of three companies that paid millions of extra dollars for the exclusive rights to sponsor the torch relay, along with Coca-Cola Co. and Samsung Group.

Executives say that while they were expecting some protests, they were caught off guard by the ferocity of the attacks on the torch by protesters angry over China's crackdown on unrest in Tibet and its support of the Sudanese regime leading persecutions in Darfur. Eggs were thrown in London. The torch was snuffed in Paris. And Mr. Gere, an actor who has long championed Tibet's cause, rallied protesters in San Francisco.

"The intensity of the protests has been very disappointing," says Deepak Advani, Lenovo's chief marketing officer. "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. But when things get violent and physical and the protesters are coming after a torchbearer in a wheelchair -- I just didn't anticipate something like that happening."

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