Acer Brandage
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Nothing like a little market consolidation to convince you that the world as indeed gone mad.
This morning the circuits were buzzing with news of Acer both rising to the #3 PC maker position (behind HP and Dell) via purchasing of Gateway … which had agreed to purchase Packard Bell. Thus we have a digital menage a trois climaxing in panting brand exhaustion (hope that doesn’t trigger your spam filter).
The problems with this deal are many. Merging three companies (four if you include the already absorbed e-machines), three cultures, and three infrastructures is a hideous affront to sanity. But being a marketing Guy, I focused on branding. Managing one brand is tough. Managing two is worse still. Managing three is pure art.
The problem is how to create three distinct brands in a commodity market? PCs are by and large indistinguishable from one another in terms of form and function. Sure there are gamer niches, road warrior laptop plays, and power user high ends. But Acer, Gateway and Packard Bell are indistinguished from white box products, much less one another.
In theory a multi-brand PC play could be done, by forcing each division to focus on one segment in the market. Acer could claim the high end and continue to produce Ferrari laptops and hot servers. Gateway might be restricted to undifferentiated middle-tier retail products, and Packard Bell could be doomed to churn out Wal-Mart bluelight specials. This may be the only way to manage three brands in a commodity market. But it also requires eliminating overlap between product lines, and that removes from the minds of customers (especially B2B tech buyers) the ability to create deep partnerships based on the “serve my every need” CIO desires. In other words “why buy Acer when I can get nearly the same thing from HP and have access to one company, one brand, and everything from notebooks to mainframes?”
But evidently, Acer thinks they can pull it off, saying “The company plans to market multiple PC brands worldwide
after the transaction, thereby increasing sales. “
Acer shares closed down 1.85% at T$63.60 before the announcement. Evidently Acer is the only one who is buying their hype.
