Ignite Malaysia Wins Acer Malaysia Social Media Creative Duties

Ignite recently won another chunk of creative duty for Acer Malaysia. The agency will be handling the brand's social media. Ignite has been the primary agency in charge of ATL creative duties since early this year.  

This recent social media pitch led by Ignite’s Head of Digital, LiLian Hor is a great win as the agency continuously drives for growth through new business wins this year. The other two agencies participate in the pitch were Publicis One and M&C Saatchi.

The challenge Acer Malaysia faces is a tough one; globally the entire laptop market is declining at 10% YOY. Stiff competition from other technology areas such as smartphones, cloud computing and apps have made the market a tough place. 

For Acer Malaysia to defy this global trend of decline, it is critical to woo the millennial, a powerful consumer. But the millennials are picky, they like moving around light, they are driven by status and the 40-year old Acer could be perceived as outdated.

"Obviously social media is a great medium to reach out to millennials but Acer Malaysia wanted a radically new approach to social media. We are looking for an approach that appeals to them yet sets us apart, as uniquely Acer,” says Stephanie Ho, Head of Marketing of Acer Malaysia.

The brief was to challenge the established social media codes and win over the millennials. This objective shaped Ignite’s social media strategy proposal – the agency decided it had to start first by updating Acer’s persona. After all, social media is about building and managing a social persona.

Ignite proposed a disruptive approach to social media for Acer, which was moving from ‘What we sell at Acer’ to ‘What drives Acer'. This meant transforming from a ‘Corporate Programmer’ to a ‘Street Smart Geek’. 

“The ‘Street Smart Geek’ (imagine Tony Stark or Quicksilver) is someone who lives with today’s trends, be it technology, fashion, or entertainment. They are intelligent, social-able. A geek who is easy to talk to and hangout with, now wouldn’t you want add or follow Acer on social media!?” asks Eldon D’Cruz, Senior Planner of Ignite. "Hence rather than just product posts, we’d talk about life hacks and our products, rather than explain the laptop technology, we’d talk about lifestyle technology." 

“With Ignite’s creative approach seamlessly fitting in with our brand and business objectives, Ignite became a natural choice for us” says Stephanie.