How do you turn a 100-year-old brand into a start-up? Many venerable institutions that have survived that long would love an answer.
Computer maker Acer’s strategy is to revive a forgotten range called Packard Bell, give it a small team, and give it access to the manufacturing and distribution machinery of one of the world’s largest PC companies.
Leon Packard and Herbert Bell founded the company in Los Angeles in 1926, initially making radios before moving into television. The name was revived as a computer brand in the 1980s and later appeared on products that included video recorders and portable GPS devices. For many European families, Packard Bell supplied their first home computer.
Emmanuel Fromont, Acer president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is one of the people best placed to attempt, or at least appreciate, the revival. He was previously Packard Bell’s vice-president for sales and marketing, when the name had a substantial European presence in personal computers and MP3 players.
“There were a lot of homes where Packard Bell was the first PC or the first MP3 player,” Fromont told Gadget during last week’s IFA technology fair, Europe’s largest consumer electronics expo, staged in Berlin every year. “For the younger generation that may not know Packard Bell anyway, it’s a blank page to create something new, different from Acer, younger, simpler, very colourful.”
The blank page already contains a €499 (about R9,400) laptop, a €149 (R2800) suitcase turntable and a €69 (R1300) feature phone with no Internet access. Headphones, audio glasses and other accessories complete the opening range.
The products carry bright colours, names beginning with “Dot”, and the slogan “Tech it easy”. Older buyers may remember the family computer, while younger buyers are encountering a new label with none of Acer’s corporate associations.
Fromont’s case rests on a kind of corporate calculation that has often delivered a wrong answer.
“This is truly a startup spirit, but with all the infrastructure of a company,” he said. “So we don’t have financial risk, we have logistics, we have people, we have legal entities. The harder part is, within this big company, creating that startup spirit.
That difficulty has buried many corporate ventures through sheer bureaucratic weight. This one starts with an additional advantage: Acer CEO Jason Chen has given the project political cover inside the group.
Packard Bell also gives Acer a place to sell products that would look strange under its established PC brands. The DotLoop turntable combines vinyl playback with Bluetooth and voice control. The DotLine feature phone makes calls and sends text messages but keeps social media out of reach.
Fromont sees the latter finding a market among parents of children aged about 10 to 15, amid tighter age rules for social platforms and attempts by schools to reduce screen time.
The feature phone also illustrates the limits of the launch. Packard Bell’s new products are headed first to European markets, and Fromont said they would not come to South Africa immediately.
Here, the resurrection has a peculiar twist: Packard Bell never died, since a local licence holder has continued selling computers under the old identity. Acer South Africa country manager Glenn du Toit told Gadget the new operation would remain separate from Acer’s local subsidiary and would adopt elements of the new branding.
“Our licensed partner, who operates within South Africa, has been doing a phenomenal job with Packard Bell,” he said. “All that’s going to happen is that there will be a brand transformation, which the teams will manage locally.”
Du Toit expects some products from the international range to come through the licence holder, although the selection rests with the local operator. Its agreement allows it to source products suited to this market, giving it room to avoid a European range that may be colourful but too expensive or poorly matched to local demand.
That autonomy could be more valuable than strict global uniformity. Fromont cited the Acer AiTV as a South African product championed by Du Toit. Acer sold an initial production run of 6,000 units and ordered another 6,000.
Fromonot also held out the possibility of producing a simple phone for this market if the local team could demonstrate sufficient volume. It might carry the Acer name because of the Packard Bell licence, but the proposition would follow the same thinking: limited functions at a price that opens a bigger market.
* Arthur Goldstuck is CEO of World Wide Worx, editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za, and author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI – The African Edge”.