The Campaign

Every Friday afternoon, Muslims are obligated to attend a sermon and prayer session which generally lasts around 1–2 hours. As footwear is forbidden inside mosques, many people chose to wear sandals for the convenience of taking them off before entering. However, most mosques have no storage for footwear, so the only option is for people to leave their sandals at the entrance. But with the huge numbers of people attending the sermons, there will undoubtedly be a sea of sandals every Friday. Many Muslims have experienced losing their sandals while visiting a mosque, either mistakenly swapped or taken by other people. This causes a sense of unease while praying, as people worry about their sandals outside. Therefore, Lenovo introduced GPSandals – Anti-loss footwear with a tracking device that gives Muslims peace of mind during their Friday prayer.

Creative Execution

Lenovo GPSandals were designed based on the insight that people want an intimate and peaceful experience when they attend a mosque, and don’t want to be distracted by minor problems. With over 50 percent of people in Indonesia under the age of 30, there is huge appetite for new consumer technology. Therefore, as a tech brand, Lenovo saw a great opportunity to solve an everyday problem with an innovative product. A GPS device was fitted within the sandals, which could be connected to a mobile phone to track the location of the sandals. There was also a tiny speaker fitted, which could be manually activated via the mobile application to help locate the sandals. The tiny speaker also acted as an alarm system which would sound if the sandals were moved too far away from the connected mobile phone.

From this beta phase, Lenovo managed to garner extremely positive responses and sentiments from the Indonesian public, receiving thousands of requests for the official release of GPSandal. The GPSandals created hype in digital space, becoming the #2 most talked about topic on social media during the soft launch. The initiative created 410,000 social media impressions with earned media value of Rp 100 million. Most importantly, Lenovo located itself in modern culture, and resonated with everyday Indonesians.

Lenovo GPSandals were designed based on the insight that people want an intimate and peaceful experience when they attend a mosque, and don’t want to be distracted by minor problems. With over 50 percent of people in Indonesia under the age of 30, there is huge appetite for new consumer technology. Therefore, as a tech brand, Lenovo saw a great opportunity to solve an everyday problem with an innovative product. A GPS device was fitted within the sandals, which could be connected to a mobile phone to track the location of the sandals. There was also a tiny speaker fitted, which could be manually activated via the mobile application to help locate the sandals. The tiny speaker also acted as an alarm system which would sound if the sandals were moved too far away from the connected mobile phone.