Four years ago, when someone mentioned going to a store and purchasing a laptop, we’d probably tell them to mask up, sit at home and browse the likes of Amazon and Flipkart. Retail channels took a hit, and recovery wasn’t easy. However, it seems like it has finally bounced back.
“2023 was a comeback year for the retail sector,” saidSooraj Balakrishnan, Head of Marketing,Acer Indiaas he engaged in a chat with exchange4media. “The activities and amount of walk-ins into the stores helped a lot last year. Retail fared really well for us in terms of driving incremental sales,” he added. For Acer India, 2023 proved to be a year where a lot of new products and new channels helped in the push to grow.
In this growth journey, the company further noted the increasing demand for gaming laptops, which are mainly centric to a TG of around 18-25 years old. To connect with them, the brand also onboarded footballer Sunil Chhetri as its brand ambassador. “Gaming continues to be a priority for us going into 2024. Initially, gaming was mainly a set-up comprising a monitor, PC, etc. We established the market for gaming laptops,” Balakrishnan pointed out.
Furthermore, gaming aligns with the company’s TG as well. “This is an age group that wants devices that can support gaming along their college projects and more. So gaming laptops are a perfect blend of all that,” he shared.
The brand forayed quite extensively into doing video ads and campaigns too last year, which resulted not just in the growth in demand for gaming laptops, but also for laptops in the non-gaming category.
Speaking of the media mix, Balakrishnan shared, “We weren’t on the traditional channels too much, although we did work with the regional channels in the South especially.” A lot of content consumption is also happening in regional languages, as Balakrishnan mentioned, for laptops below the range of Rs 40,000, driving campaigns in regional languages worked quite well.
But at a pan-India level, most of the focus of the brand was on non-traditional mediums like OTT, YouTube, and social media. Out of all, YouTube proved to be the winner in terms of generating ROI for the company.
“There you can also push shopping ads in between your content and the measurement is a lot more integrated with Google, so if you run a Google campaign you can track right from the attribution on YouTube to a final purchase on the D2C website,” he explained. As compared to other digital channels, YouTube’s ability to provide full-funnel data worked for the brand.
Going forward in 2024, Acer India will leverage OTT as an advertising medium for specific events like IPL, ISL or the likes of Bigg Boss, while YouTube as a channel will be leveraged all through the year. “We look more for the event spikes, to be part of OTT. We are also working to become a part of the branded content side of films. That also helps to drive the messaging more subtly,” Balakrishnan shared.
The media spends are expected to go up for the brand this year, considering there are more product lines across other markets for Acer India. “PCs are the core, but you will soon start seeing more product lines. So definitely there’ll be a 25% hike in terms of spends this year,” he added.
The company is also quite enthusiastic about its D2C play, especially in a world where third-party cookies are phasing out.
Without third-party cookies, marketers need to have their first-party data strategy in place. “Without D2C, first-party data would have been impossible. So D2C helps us understand our customers and profile similar customers through tools and reach out to them as well,” Balakrishnan highlighted.
In terms of sales, Acer India’s D2C website is generating around 15-20% of it. “There is a large chunk on Flipkart and Amazon. There is also a very good outcome at large format retailers like Croma,” he added.
