After playing Steve Jobs in an epic movie that didn’t do very well in the box office, Two and A Half Men and That 70’s Show star Ashton Kutcher quickly changed teams to Team Android.
Kutcher was hired on to be an “engineer” of sorts for Lenovo, a position that blends his acting abilities and his love of technology. According to several reports, although it’s at first a spokesman role, Kutcher has sat in design meetings and given his analysis on some of Lenovo’s mobile devices.
“Ashton will work with the company’s engineering teams around the world to develop and market the Yoga line of tablets by providing input and decision-making into design, specifications, software and usage scenarios.” Lenovo said in a statement back in October.
Kutcher was on hand to release and announce Lenovo’s first Yoga tablets. The Android powered Yoga tablets feature three different “use” positions, “hold’ “stand” and “tilt” and a very competitive price point. Lenovo took to the stage at Mobile World Congress to unveil their newer versions of the just five month old tablets.
Now recode reports that Kutcher will be back in the saddle again jockeying for Lenovo’s newest smartphones. This time around though, Kutcher is responsible for the actual user experience of the smartphones. Using celebrity spokespeople is nothing new, Alicia Keys held a celebrity spokesperson role for Blackberry, which didn’t seem to do very well.
Kutcher is reportedly taking his position with Lenovo seriously.
“I know on one level, it sounds corny, but it is real,” Lenovo Chief Marketing Officer David Roman told Re/code in an interview. “He not only sees himself as an engineer, but he is an engineer. If he sees a problem, he wants to solve it.”