Powering the future of eCommerce with AI and bold leadership with Lenovo’s Jennifer Downes
How do you drive innovation inside a global tech powerhouse? Jennifer Downes, Global eCommerce CMO at Lenovo, is on a mission to transform how the brand connects with customers online. In this episode, she dives into how Lenovo is embracing AI, streamlining content production, and putting customer experience front and centre.
Putting the customer first – always
For Jennifer, customer experience isn’t just a buzzword - it’s the backbone of everything they do. “We create products based on customer insights,” she said. “They can be brutally honest about what they like and what they don't like, which is great for us because it gives us an opportunity to evolve and to make improvements on that experience.” From CX scores to real-time dashboards, her team is constantly refining the experience to build on customer trust and value.
AI as a game-changer
AI isn’t just a tool, it’s a strategic edge. For Jennifer, it’s not replacing people but rather, reinventing how they work, that makes AI a competitive advantage. “I always tell people it’s not the AI itself in terms of the technology, it’s the people who know how to use AI, she said.
Fail fast, learn faster
Experimentation plays a specific role in the culture Jennifer is creating at Lenovo. “We operate like a startup. You’ve got to be comfortable being uncomfortable,” Jennifer said. With a team that’s encouraged to test, learn and adapt, innovation is always on the agenda. “It's very comforting to know that you can fail. I think what I've seen is that when people feel like they can't fail, they don't try to do new things...you have to be willing to take risks,” she said.
From silos to synergy
Lenovo has shifted from an agency models to a unified, in-house content strategy . The result? Consistency, greater efficiency, and content that speaks directly to diverse customer groups, aided by Adobe GenStudio. “When you talk about ‘how do I want to talk to a student’, or a gamer or a small to medium business… We want to be consistent in how we do that. We want to talk to our customers in a way that shows that we understand them,” Jennifer said.
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This episode of The CMO Show was brought to you by host Mark Jones, producers Kate Zadel and Kirsten Bables and audio engineers Ed Cheng and Daniel Marr. This is an edited excerpt of the podcast transcript.
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Mark Jones
One of the things that's always fascinated me about multinational companies is that they have one brand and one big story that they tell globally, but they have to localize it for individual countries and geographies. What's the lesson that we can learn from getting those two things right? How do you have a big story that's localised and relevant?
Hello. How are you doing? Mark Jones here. Thanks for joining us on The CMO Show podcast, brought to you by ImpactInstitute in partnership with our friends at Adobe. Now, today, I've got a really interesting interview with Jennifer Downes. She's the global CMO for eCommerce at Lenovo. Now, of course, this is one of the biggest PC manufacturers in the world.
We had an opportunity to sit down just earlier this year at Adobe Summit in Las Vegas, had a chat about what they're doing with AI, of course, and how they're transforming their entire marketing operation around the world. This of course, plays into a long running dilemma. How do you have a big brand that works at scale? And you've got to localize your messages in the expression of that brand in different geographies, different markets around the world.Sometimes you can get it right and sometimes you can get it really, really wrong. So what can we learn from her story? How is she rethinking the way their team operates and what technologies they use? Where, when, why and how? Let's dive into it.
Mark Jones
One of the fun things you said just before we started recording was that there are many CMOs at Lenovo.
Jennifer Downes
Yes.
Mark Jones
Now, that's not a common thing from my experience. Why is that the case for you?
Jennifer Downes
We are a very large organisation, very complex, and so we have our corporate brand, Lenovo, and we have a CMO that's responsible for that, but we also have various business units, and so each of those business units also has a CMO. And because of the growing nature and importance of e-commerce at Lenovo, about five years ago they asked me to step into that role, and at the time that was a new role, so pretty exciting for me to step into something that was brand new and I got to sort of make it my own.
Mark Jones
And tell me about the e-commerce component. So that's direct sales from consumers on the website?
Jennifer Downes
That's right. So anything lenovo.com. So if you're coming to the site, if you're transacting or if there's support and services, that's all through our organisation.
Mark Jones
Great. Now, I'm aware that Lenovo is actually quite an old company. It's been around since the '80s, but then of course most famous for acquiring the PC division of IBM.
Jennifer Downes
Yes.
Mark Jones
And that was really when it took off and it's now the largest PC manufacturer, right?
Jennifer Downes
In the world. That's right.
Mark Jones
In the world.
Jennifer Downes
Number one in the world.
Mark Jones
I got my homework right?
Jennifer Downes
You did.
Mark Jones
Okay, great.
Jennifer Downes
I'm impressed.
Mark Jones
Thank you. Well, tell me though, the PC market has never stood still, and we're in, of course, the era of agentic AI. So tell me about the dynamics that are effectively reshaping both the market and Lenovo. What's your perspective on what life is like at the moment?
Jennifer Downes
It's really busy at the moment, but very exciting. I think one of the things we've certainly seen, and we saw this starting with the pandemic, is just change in consumer behaviour, right? More and more... During the pandemic, people had to buy online because the store situation, but we've seen that behaviour continue and we expect that it will continue as people get more comfortable buying online, more comfortable looking for content in various places, making that transaction even if it is a higher consideration product. So we've seen that scaling. So I think that's one thing that's had a huge impact in what we do and everything that we do from a lenovo.com perspective is really looking at that consumer behaviour because customer experience is number one for us. And so those trends and keeping mindful of what's happening there is really important.
The other one is AI. That's significant as well, not only from a capability standpoint and we service our customers, but also when you look at Lenovo's portfolio, AI is where it's at. So we've just launched a bunch of new PCs with AI capability, and that's because, again, we're seeing what that consumer behaviour is driving to and the needs that they have to be more productive.
Mark Jones
If I think about the experience of your peers and the challenge that you're facing here around differentiation in a fast-moving marketplace, what are you leaning into? What's the story you're telling that allows you to differentiate in this e-commerce vertical in particular?
Jennifer Downes
Yeah. For us, it's really about the experience and that's where a customer really has to be at the centre. And a lot of brands talk about customer experience and they'll say that they're customer first. I think sometimes that may be true. Sometimes it doesn't quite execute the way that you would like. I think for us, it really is at the centre of everything that we do. So from a Lenovo, broad Lenovo perspective, we create products based on customer insights. So we know that there's a need out there as we're producing these products. From a lenovo.com perspective, we take that very seriously. So we look at data, we look at the customer behaviour, we're looking at our CX scores, we take the feedback from the customers, and they're telling us what about the experience is working, what's not working? And they can be brutally honest about what they like and what they don't like, which is great for us because it gives us an opportunity to evolve and to make improvements on that experience.
Mark Jones
So to lean into a bit of the Adobe context obviously here at Summit, I'm just guessing you like a good dashboard.
Jennifer Downes
I've been known to use one or two. Yes.
Mark Jones
Tell me about the challenges you're facing and then the opportunities. What are you learning about interrogating this data that we're speaking about?
Jennifer Downes
Well, there's so much data and we have lots of dashboards.
Mark Jones
Too much?
Jennifer Downes
At times, it may feel like that. I think you can run into a situation where you almost feel like you have analysis paralysis because there's just so much data that you have at your disposal. How do you make these things work together, right? Because they sometimes look like they're telling you different stories. Measurement is one of the critical things that we're working on right now. And so when you look at, we've got MMO models, we have also Adobe reporting. We have various reports that we're looking at, they don't necessarily all tell you the same story, which you wouldn't expect, there're always going to be some differentiation.
Mark Jones
Yes.
Jennifer Downes
But it's just really understanding what do you do with that data and what sort of picture and conclusion do you draw from that.
Mark Jones
Yeah.
Jennifer Downes
And so I think that's the tricky part, but also the opportunity for the marketers to say, okay, what is my hypothesis? What problem am I trying to solve? And how do I use this data to help me do that?
Mark Jones
Well, one of the reasons I ask is that as CMOs and we like to think that we own the customer, or at least we understand them, what are you learning about not just customer behaviour, but their sentiment through some of these tools?
Jennifer Downes
True. We're always looking at the customer experience or behaviour on the site, but we also have, our CX team is always looking at customer sentiment as well. So we have panels and research that we do with our customers. Anytime we want to make a change on the site, we're asking a panel of customers to actually go through that experience and tell us what they think. So that's where we have an opportunity to really understand from their perspective what's working, what's not, what are some of the newer trends or expectations that they have that maybe we hadn't seen or thought of that now we can start adapting as we're building out further capabilities on our site.
Mark Jones
And obviously AI has got to play a big role, but how are you not just adopting, but experimenting? Because the process you just spoke about there was very much an iterative approach to it, right?
Jennifer Downes
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Mark Jones
And I don't think it's particularly unique from a broader perspective if you look at any online retailer, it's constant iteration.
Jennifer Downes
That's right. For us, we would say we have a test and learn culture, so we're willing to test anything a couple of times. I think you have to be willing to, because we don't know all the answers, there's a lot we don't know. And so being open-minded to say, we know that the customer has unique needs, we know that it's constantly evolving, how do we evolve that to sort of predict what they're looking for and to be able to give that to them before they have to ask for it? So our goal is always to give them a wow experience. We're in the PC business, so a lot of the capabilities, maybe they see that that's sort of similar across different brands, but where we can really be unique is in the differentiation and how we express that product or how we express that experience to them. And so that's something that we put a lot of focus on as an e-commerce engine, is really looking at what does that look like for our customer and how do we continuously give them something that nobody else can give them?
Mark Jones
What's your take your peers and marketers in general in terms of maturity on the Gen AI early adopter status through to some of the more sophisticated trials that we're seeing around the agentic AI. And by that I mean really moving into an idea of how can I optimise everything that I do, right? Where are the friction points?
Jennifer Downes
Yeah.
Mark Jones
I'm not just trying to use this system to create more content. I'm actually looking to streamline entire workflows. And it's actually a totally different mindset. In general, how would you rate the maturity of your peers?
Jennifer Downes
I think it's hard to... I always think sometimes, and I had this conversation at dinner with somebody last night, I always think sometimes we're never as far along as somebody else, but actually they're telling us that we're much farther along than some.
Mark Jones
Yeah.
Jennifer Downes
So sometimes it's hard to believe that because you just think, well, I always have so much more room to improve, and it's hard to believe that we could actually be best in class in something. But I think that we are very much an entrepreneurial organisation, and sometimes people find that shocking because we're part of such a large organisation, but it is very much at times feels like you're working a startup environment because we're just always wanting to try something new. And our leader is very much a visionary. He's very much wants to be on the cutting edge of things. And so if he sees a new idea out there, he encourages us to go look for new ideas and just go try them. The worst thing that can happen is that fails. It doesn't mean you break everything, but you try it, you learn from it and you move on.
Mark Jones
Yes.
Jennifer Downes
And so that's something that we really take to heart, and I think that we have done that in such a way that we are one of the leaders when it comes to trying out new things.
Mark Jones
Can you give me some examples of some of the maybe orchestration or other features that you're using from the AI capabilities?
Jennifer Downes
So we use a lot of the Adobe capabilities. Certainly we're using their analytics, personalization, we use their content and asset management. We just signed on with GenStudio and I'm super excited about that. I've got lots of problems, but content is probably the big one. It's the one that keeps me up at night because we want to create personalization at scale just like everybody else does. And we have core segments that we are uniquely targeting. But the only way to really do that, especially when you're looking at across all of the different touch points in which they engage with us, you have to have content. And that's where we've struggled.
Mark Jones
Well not just have content but more.
Jennifer Downes
It's more content, but also the right content. I think we're building a lot of stuff. We got various teams across, even just our e-commerce organisation that are building content. So I run a global organisation. My team produces content. My teams in the geographies also produce content. Our UX team, everybody is producing content, but they're producing it in a very siloed way because they have unique needs, and so they're building the content that they need.
Mark Jones
Right.
Jennifer Downes
But what that means is you probably have a tonne of duplicity. We don't necessarily have a lot of consistency. You can follow a brand guideline that's pretty straightforward. But when you talk about how do I want to talk to a student, or how do I want to talk to a gamer or a small medium business, and those represent some of our core target audiences, we want to be consistent in how we do that, and we want to talk to our customers in a way that shows that we understand them. If I'm talking to a business owner, I want them to know that I get the trials and tribulations that they're going through as a business owner and how can I offer them support? Or if I'm talking to a consumer, I'm talking to a gamer, what's important to them is their gaming. So having content that really allows you to personalise those experiences is important. But knowing what content you need to produce is really important, and we don't have a great way of tracking that today.
Mark Jones
So does that mean your entire global marketing team is effectively working in one instance of Adobe or have access to the same tools and services?
Jennifer Downes
They have been working... So GenStudio is brand new for us. They've been working with agencies, so we've had numerous agencies across the globe or they're working, they maybe have one or two people in their teams that can produce this content. So they're all kind of doing it in a silo. We're not sharing the content. So again, a lot of duplicity, a lot of inefficiency, I would say. What we want to do with GenStudio is we're actually going to change our processes and change our structure to be able to better leverage this tool. So the idea is that we create a small group of content producers that are now going to produce that content. They become the subject matter experts and innovators.
Mark Jones
Are they in-house or agencies?
Jennifer Downes
They will be in-house.
Mark Jones
Yeah.
Jennifer Downes
So our goal is to bring that in-house and... Because there's really no reason why we can't do that if you have the right tool. And we believe that GenStudio is the tool to help us do that.
Mark Jones
What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge in that transition? And I'm asking on behalf of the listener who's very curious.
Jennifer Downes
It's the people.
Mark Jones
Yeah.
Jennifer Downes
It'll be the people. I think that a lot of times we all think, and myself included, all get this great tool and it's going to solve all these problems for me.
Mark Jones
Yeah. It's not a panacea though, is it?
Jennifer Downes
It's not. The reality is you have to think about the trifecta of people, process, and tech.
Mark Jones
Right.
Jennifer Downes
And you have to think about, okay, how does this change my process? How am I working today? How do I need to work with a new environment? More importantly, how do I get my team members along for the ride? So-
Mark Jones
This is change management.
Jennifer Downes
Absolutely. And that is how we actually approach this. So the first thing I said to Adobe was, I get the tech, I see the vision of what it can do for me. I believe in it, but I want to know how do I change my organisation to accommodate.
Mark Jones
It's a really interesting approach to see how you're bringing in more control creatively and bringing the team along, and obviously trying all these new technologies. I think one of the biggest issues I've seen over time, and this is with regards to any form of MarTech, is your team has to stay current.
Jennifer Downes
That's right.
Mark Jones
And they've got to be motivated to do that as well. So how do you tap into that passion, that desire to have a team that leans into this?
Jennifer Downes
Yeah, I think we are very fortunate that we have a team of people who are just driven to learn. I think they're always open to new ideas, and I think it's just the culture that we've built in our organisation. People who just kind of want to come in and just do the mundane thing don't usually survive in our organisation. So I sometimes think that e-commerce and the digital spaces sort of attract a certain type of individual, and that's really what you need is someone who is keen to learn, is not afraid to go out and look for new stuff, look for new ideas, and try to adopt them. So you can't have this fear of failure.
Mark Jones
Yes.
Jennifer Downes
And we don't. So we give people the room to go out and try new things. We know it's going to fail. In fact, that was one of the things as we were presenting this business case, we said to the leaders, my peers, and my boss, I expect something is going to go wrong here. We just have to know that. And if we're not all okay with that, then maybe we shouldn't do this. But I think we're all adults. We all know that that's just the way of the world. And so the only way you grow-
Mark Jones
How we going to learn?
Jennifer Downes
Right. You've got to learn. You've got to be uncomfortable at some point to be able to grow. And I think that's the leap that we took with all of this.
Mark Jones
It sounds to me like you've got a competitive lens here too, as you should, which is, if we can get this right, the lens here is, use AI to get competitive advantage.
Jennifer Downes
That's right.
Mark Jones
And it's building on that idea that you're going to get beaten by people with AI, not necessarily beaten by AI itself.
Jennifer Downes
That's right. It's not just AI itself. But I always tell people, it's not the AI itself in terms of the technology, but it's the people who know how to use AI. They're the ones who have to be careful of.
Mark Jones
Okay.
Jennifer Downes
Because when we first started talking about AI a couple years ago, I challenged my team. So I own all of the websites, all the content on the sites, and I said, I really want you to think about how do you test into AI and using that to make yourself more productive. And gave them a couple of months, I didn't see anything. And so when I asked the question, "what have we done?" Well, we haven't done much. "Well, "why?" "Well, because we don't know what that means for us. What are you really asking us?" "Well, I'm asking you to go try something new. I'm asking you to figure out ways that you can streamline more of your operational parts of your job, which then allows you to be more strategic. This actually allows you to do the things that you thought of when you became a marketer in the first place." So it was getting over a little bit of that hurdle and thinking, what does this mean for my job? Are you asking me to replace myself? No, I'm asking you to reinvent yourself. But if you don't do it, someone else will. So you've really got to think about long-term, where do you want to be, and how do you see this as an augmentation of you to become almost a newer self where you get to be more strategic, you get to be more creative, and let AI do more of the mundane type of stuff.
Mark Jones
Last question. Advice for your peers who might be in a similar role to you. And by that I mean driving growth, building out something on the fly as it were, while you're doing all this work and looking to achieve this big transition from reliance on distributed agencies to more of that in-house mentality.
Jennifer Downes
I would say that you've got to have the courage to go for it. So I think a couple of things. One is having an open mind, what's going on in the market. You really do need to stay abreast of things. This market is changing so fast.
Mark Jones
Yeah.
Jennifer Downes
And when we started looking at AI technologies, it was amazing to me to see how their capabilities had evolved even in a couple of months. It's just crazy. You would never have expected it. And so I anticipate that that'll continue. And so you always have to be looking at what's going on in the market, how are things evolving. But also be proactive in saying, here's what I need. Right? Think of those big problems, those hypotheses and asking partners to help you. And that's something that Adobe has done with us, is they actually help take some of our feedback to inform the GenStudio product. So it's been a really exciting time for us. But I think having that test and learn mentality, if you're not willing to test things, if you're not willing to fail, you're going to get left behind.
Mark Jones
You're sounding more and more like a startup. In a good way.
Jennifer Downes
We operate like a startup in some ways, yeah. Which is what's kept me there for so long. Been there 15 years, and I love it.
Mark Jones
That's awesome. Jennifer Downes, thanks for being my guest.
Jennifer Downes
Oh, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
Mark Jones
One of the things that I took away from this interview, she talked about how they have a team that is driven to learn. This learning piece really is an attitude of leaning into opportunities. If there's one thing that we're thinking about at the moment in marketing right around the world. It is, of course, AI, but behind that, how are you approaching the task of learning? Some of us been around a while. Gray hair like me. We can, actually I love learning, but a lot of people can actually find it a challenge because we're feeling this tension. I used to always do it this way. Maybe I have to do it some other way. Use some other technique and that can be hard.
But the opportunity is when you get together in a team that is all exploring, learning, moving forward together, you can start to firstly, overcome some of those internal barriers and then secondly, start to discover some really interesting things, learn from each other of course, and then create new opportunities.
That's what we're seeing at Lenovo. And I hope there are some lessons here. Maybe it's that or some other part of her story that really inspire you. So thanks once again for joining us on The CMO Show. It's been great to have you. My name is Mark Jones, we'll see you next time.