The new branding strategy for Acer, Packard Bell, and Gateway

In Budapest, Hungary on Friday, the Acer group unveiled its strategy for marketing and identity-branding for all of its consumer computer labels.

TBR analyst John Spooner remarked to us earlier this year that Acer looked to be arranging itself at the top of its brand pyramid, ahead of Gateway and Packard Bell, and eMachines. In the new conglomerate, it looked like all the brands would retain their identities. On Friday, Acer announced the relative markets where these products would be aimed, and there doesn't appear to be a change in course.

Last April, the group showed signs of finalizing its strategy when Gateway launched new notebooks that appeared to be geared toward the enthusiast crowd. Friday, Acer group announced that Gateway and Packard Bell are closely aligned with "user segments for whom the PC is a necessary instrument in their daily social lives...yet who perceive technology as a barrier and are attracted to an established and solid brand." It also says these brands are synonymous with style and trends, so marketing will take place accordingly.

In its transition to Acer ownership, Gateway sold its professional divisions to MPC, and ended its famous direct sales model, moving into pre-made consumer machines. Acer hopes the brand will maintain a reputation for being simple and easy to use.

Though in the last 20 years of personal computing, Packard Bell has not typically been associated with style or glamour, the brand's roots actually reach all the way back to the 1920's as a cutting-edge tube radio company. While time and acquisitions have all but removed Packard Bell from the US, the brand remains strong in Europe, with its Easynote line of notebooks, that take an atypical approach to design.

Recently, Packard Bell announced a full line of new products, using such descriptors as "hedonism...minimalistic design...intense good looks."

The group's announcement on Friday noted that only Acer, Gateway, and Packard Bell would retain "three distinct identities," glossing over eMachines. Since the latter brand was already a subdivision of Gateway when it was acquired by Acer, it will likely remain a subset. As Acer's group marketing now says, eMachines makes products for those with a "pragmatic approach to technology." The brand has long been associated with the lowest-priced systems on the market, and likewise isn't known for its power or style (with the exception of certain reconditioned units sold by TigerDirect three years ago with surprisingly souped-up buildouts), so pragmatism could be a fair call.

Finally, the Acer brand, which this year has pulled up behind HP and Dell into the position of third largest PC seller in the US, will seek to "simplify my life through technology." This will no doubt be the company's marketing campaign in the coming months as it attempts to grab and hold onto the position of the second largest computer manufacturer in the world.