Acer to be ‘marketing-oriented’ company
PC and Laptop maker Acer has appointed Michael Birkin as its chief marketing officer with a brief to make it become a “marketing-oriented” company as it looks to regain the market share it has lost to HP, Lenovo and Dell.
The former Red Peak Group chairman will be responsible for implementing the new company ‘mindset’ and will report directly into Acer’s chairman and CEO J.T. Wang.
The company has also formed a marketing committee, which will be chaired by its incumbent CMO Walter Deppeler. It will be responsible for integrating Acer’s global branding and marketing strategy across all divisions within the business.
J.T. Wang says Acer wants to place marketing ahead of R&D and design in its earliest product development stages.
He adds: “Our precise understanding of customers’ needs will lead the way in products and services development. We will build an end-to-end marketing environment and enhance our marketing-oriented mindset.”
Red Peak will also continue to perform marketing services functions for Acer, while Mother has worked on its advertising account since February, creating its recent ‘Jack Bauer’-fronted campaign.
It is understood Red Peak has been working with Acer for the past year to develop a new brand positioning, although no further details have been announced.
The brand is currently the computing equipment worldwide partner of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Acer is the fourth biggest PC vendor in terms of shipments, with a 10.4 per cent share of the market, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC)’s figures for the second quarter of 2012. The largest PC maker is HP, with a 15.5 per cent market share, although it is under increasing threat from Lenovo, which increased shipments 25.2 per cent year on year to become the second biggest vendor ahead of Dell.
The worldwide PC market saw growth stall in the second quarter of 2012, with shipments dropping 0.1% year on year, IDC says. This has been largely due to retailers and consumers being wary of buying new PCs ahead of new product launches this autumn and the growing trend towards tablet devices.
