Serena Williams

Hewlett Packard dominates the notebook market in India with its two brands - Compaq and HP Pavilion. Due to its price premium, HP Pavilion is the more lucrative brand, so HP wanted to position this brand as amore fashionable laptop. To make HP Pavilion a fashion brand, it needed to be seen by the right people in the right place. HP Pavilion sponsored Indian Fashion Week in Delhi and, recognizing that celebrity endorsement is 62% more influential in India than elsewhere, decided to leverage the HP ambassador Serena Williams, who was visiting at the time to play the Bangalore Open. While she was a tennis icon, she was not immediately associated with fashion. HP discovered that Williams adored hip designer duo Nikhil & Shantanu – the toast of Indian fashion. So the designers were commissioned to create a collection based on the skins of the limited imprint edition HP Pavilion for Williams to wear. HP created 12 fashion-themed road shows in regions near Delhi as well as an online campaign and TV campaign on Fashion TV. HP also held a press conference with Serena Williams following the Bangalore Open, held as part of Fashion Week. It was staged as a fashion show, with Serena walking the catwalk with models wearing the Nikhil-Shantanu collection. The entire cost only around $200k USD. The Limited Edition version of the HP Pavilion was out of stock in within two months.