Founded in 1976, Acer ranks among the world's top five branded PC vendors. In 2000, Acer spun-off its manufacturing operation to focus its resources on developing technologically advanced, user-friendly solutions. The decision to support the sales of its product lines through specific marketing activities that best utilize distribution channels, has allowed Acer to achieve excellent results worldwide.

Overcoming the barriers between people and technology: This is Acer’s long-term mission, to allow anyone to use and benefit from technology. Acer is renowned for the development and manufacture of sophisticatedly and intuitively designed, easy to use products.

With its 100% indirect sales model and innovative product designs, Acer has become the fourth largest worldwide PC vendor and the fastest growing. Acer is the EMEA region leader in the notebook sector, holding over 20% market share during 2006. Confirming its leadership in the EMEA notebook market, Acer ranks first in 13 countries: Italy, Spain, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, The Czech Republic, Russia, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Poland, Hungary and The Slovakian Republic.

Acer’s product range includes PC notebooks and Desktops, servers and storage systems, monitors, peripheral devices, digital devices, LCD TVs and e-business solutions for business, Government, Education and home users. Acer employs 5,400 people throughout the world and has created a consolidated sales and service network in more than 100 countries. Revenues reached US $11.32 billion in 2006.

In a market in which consumer goods offer increasingly advanced and standardized technologies, a new generation of users is changing consumer rules: emotional consumers.

A PC vendor aimed at gaining share in today’s market must respond to end users’ requests. But how? With a new multibrand strategy, Acer has been able to set user targets and identify the ideals these users aspire to, and then develop products that reflect their desires and needs.

Emotional users take the technical qualities of their electronic goods for granted. They expect an LCD television, once plugged in, to be able to find available channels and transmit them instantly with bright, vivid colors. Instead, what they don’t take for granted is the affinity between the product and their own aspirations, between the product brand and what they want to be, or how they want to be considered by owning it. Above all, what they buy is the idea that rotates around the product, conjured up by the brand and the visual details in which they manage to identify themselves with.

While the technical information is essential for rational consumers – such as the engineering of the product's performance and parts - for emotional consumers values, history and experience are the plus points that distinguish the goods from other standardized and standardizing ones.

The device’s technical quality is now taken for granted and is not the distinguishing element when making purchase choices. The dynamics that regulate the purchase are increasingly similar to those of any consumer product. The search for affinities between one’s own identity and the identity expressed by the brand is more important than technical information.

Acer has known how to interpret this evolution in the purchasing process from rational to emotional ahead of time, and therefore has introduced a strategy that can generate market growth from the change; identifying the ideals that the various user targets aspire to and then developing products that reflect desires and needs.

First stage of this strategy was based on extensive research and analysis throughout Europe and the US destined to identify various user segments and to understand the reasons that generate purchases, according to the brand and technology drivers, also identifying brand perception.
This study has determined six distinctive user segments:

Tecno-leaders and Tecno-rationals are real trend setters. They look for innovation and the best performance. They have a complete mastery of technology and are always up-to-date; their primary source for information is the web, which is also their favorite purchase channel.
“Trends & Lifestyle” consumers trust the brand above all. “Trends” value simplicity and reliability, while “Lifestyles” are also sensitive to design.
“Conventionals” are influenced by trend setters. They buy the same things as trend setters as long as the brand is known and fulfils basic design criteria.
The “Simplicity & Value for Money” segment doesn‘t care about brand or design. Technology has to be simple and cheap, with a good price/performance ratio.
The classification of users purchase attitudes has taken Acer into a second stage of its multibrand strategy: the definition of the Brand Value propositions, preserving each brand’s identity and personality therefore avoiding any overlap or cannibalization between them.

Acer has found its natural position in the range of Tecno-leader and Tecno-rational users that identify with a state-of-the-art, innovative brand that can “simplify life through technology”.

Gateway in the US and Packard Bell in EMEA, synonyms of style and trends, have found more affinity with a user group that looks for a reliable brand that can offer simple, easy-to-use devices, with which they can identify and acknowledge their own personality. Trends and Lifestyles are the reference segments.

Lastly, eMachines is aimed at those who adopt a strictly pragmatic approach and expect that a PC is predominantly an efficient and worthwhile instrument: the Simplicity & Value for Money users.

The definition of the brand identities found in the relative user segments has allowed Acer to complete its multi-brand strategy, revolutionizing the development of its products thus presenting a new product line up with a distinctive look & feel for each brand. The user will be able to associate a memory to each line, each curve on the casing, an emotion that will allow him or her to establish an exclusive and unique relationship with the brand and the product itself.

Some of the ACER notebooks are:

Ferrari

Ferrari 1100

TravelMate

TravelMate® 6593
TravelMate® 6493
TravelMate® 6293
TravelMate® 6292
TravelMate® 5730
TravelMate® 5530
TravelMate® 4730

Aspire

Aspire® 8930
Aspire® 8920
Aspire® 8730
Aspire® 7730
Aspire® 7530
Aspire® 6935
Aspire® 6930
Aspire® 6920
Aspire® 6530
Aspire® 5735
Aspire® 5730
Aspire® 5535
Aspire® 5530
Aspire® 5520
Aspire® 5515
Aspire® 5335
Aspire® 5315
Aspire® 4730
Aspire® 4530
Aspire® 4520

Extensa

Extensa® 5630
Extensa® 5620
Extensa® 4630
Extensa® 4620
Extensa® 4230


You can go to this ACER site to configure your next ACER notebook.