Acer: Predator
Acer Predator is a gamer-focused brand and line of computer hardware, and by far one of the brand’s best performing product lines. The series is characterized by the futuristic computer chassis and incredible high performance, which is greatly coveted by the gamer community. This initiative was developed to elevate Acer’s Predator line in the competitive gamer market through a reimagined marketing integration of popular gaming experiences and character archetypes.
The Challenge
The challenge for Acer was reinvigorating the brand with energy and creating a story that would compel gamers to purchase products from their new line. Acer wanted to unveil this new brand at it’s annual global press conference (GPC) in addition to sponsored pro-gaming events throughout the year. The impact had to be profound and offer gamers an authentic and inspired approach to brand storytelling that promoted character-building and personalized experiences over basic specs and price points.
our solutions
The key to re-imagining the new Predator Universe was to implement dynamic story development and award-winning visual development to create an immersive brand-story driven that personified their products and brand themes into dynamic characters, capabilities, and environments. Vanquish also integrated Acer’s brand sponsorship with notable e-sports events to develop a mythical recruiting initiative that tied real world Acer products and events with in-game experiences and avatars. Vanquish was proud to create a fully immersive campaign full of custom characters, interactive videos, and graphic novel, integrated into the company’s global marketing efforts.
The first piece in bringing this incredible dynamic story to life, was the creation of the custom characters and key art. By partnering up renown VFX firm Aaron Sims Creative, we were able to design an assortment of characters that fit the vision of Predator. These characters had to carry the story and message that Acer wanted. In the end 5 custom characters were created, with assets compatible both for video and print campaigns.
With characters now developed the next phase of the Acer Predator campaign was to develop a video component that would tell the story behind Predator, conversely named Predatoverse. Two videos key video deliverables were produced, one showcasing the actual story of the Predator characters, and the other tying the hardware and characters together.
Another component added to the Acer campaign, was a fun and entertaining graphic novel, also showing the story behind the creation of Predatorverse. Read the full comic here.
the results
The Acer Predator characters and custom content were a tremendous success, and held tightly under wraps until their annual 2018 Next@Acer Global Press Conference, where CEO Jason Chen unveiled the new Predator lineup for the year using the custom created content. In addition, the new Predator content pieces were added to the company website, and the videos were used for worldwide marketing initiatives. Take a peek below at the grand unveiling.
