Here’s How Twitter Reacted to InfoComm Changing Its Name to AVIXA

Soon after InfoComm International announced it has changed its name to AVIXA (Audio Visual and Integrated Experience Association) the #AVTweeps community on Twitter reacted.

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Here’s How Twitter Reacted to InfoComm Changing Its Name to AVIXA

The 20 or so assembled integration industry reporters learned the news yesterday morning, but were under strict embargo not to reveal that InfoComm International has changed its name to AVIXA (Audio Visual and Integrated Experience Association) until 7:00 p.m. E.T. last night. It was well-teased, however, that a big announcement was coming. When the clock struck 7:00, articles went live, newsletters were launched, and the #AVTweeps community on Twitter reacted.

AVIXA has to be impressed that its member community cares this much about its brand shift and name change.

Meanwhile, for InfoComm International, now AVIXA, changing the well-branded name of the trade organization was anything but a quick reaction.

It’s a move that’s been in the works for almost two years, said executive director David Labuskes, adding that he believes the new name will carry the association into the next 50 years.

“As of today, we’re something more,” Labuskes said. “This is a name that marries the tradition of what we do with what we create. It’s who we’ve been, who we are and who we hope to be.”

The AVIXA brand is the result of about two years of conversations, starting with the association’s board of directors, who asked Labuskes and others in InfoComm to consider how to revitalize the brand going forward. From there, senior VP of marketing and communications Dan Goldstein hired a brand consulting agency, Ripe, which urged InfoComm leadership to change the association’s name.

Labuskes resisted the idea for several months, he acknowledged, so he won’t be surprised if some in the space don’t like the change. The new brand is about attracting new members and expanding the already-robust outreach AVIXA has done in attracting end users to its events, including through the TIDE Conference at InfoComm 2017.

“There’s resistance when you do something bold,” says Labuskes. “We’re reaffirming AV with this new brand. This isn’t about leaving them behind. There’s a continued shared need to advance the industry and we have a sense of responsibility to help our members achieve greatness.”

AVIXA’s shows will retain the InfoComm brand, especially as several of them have achieved record attendance in the past year.

AVIXA—chosen from about 70 possible names—isn’t the association’s first name change. It started in 1939 as the National Association of Visual Education Dealers, before merging with the Allied Non-Theatrical Film Association in 1949 and becoming the National Audio-Visual Association. NAVA changed its name to the International Communications Industries Association in 1983 and then to InfoComm International in 2005.

“It’s not a new coat of paint,” says Goldstein, who has been pushing for InfoComm International to change its brand for several years. “It’s a new value proposition.”

Here’s how people on Twitter reacted to InfoComm International Becoming AVIXA:

 

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Comments

  • Pete Schenck, CTS says:

    Here’s the thing with marketing firms… They end up telling you what you paid them to tell you. If you tell them that you want a new name and it should be an acronym, they will come up with an acronym that meets your request.

    A friend of mine (with an MBA) said “Pretty risky to walk away from a big brand name too. It isn’t like their brand was valujet”.

    I also agree with the tweet about how ACM hasn’t changed their name ever.

    What were you guys (InfoComm brass) thinking???

    • D. Craig MacCormack says:

      Thanks for your comments, Peter. Clarifying one thing you said, though, David Labuskes was opposed to any sort of name change for InfoComm for several months, he said this week. He didn’t go into this process seeking a name change but certainly had to be convinced about why it was the right thing for them to do.

  • Colin Tyler says:

    Audio Visual design and integration firms typically respond to a clients needs request as defined by the client objective to use Audio Visual tools as a delivery platform for a message or experience they wish to present. The clients intent is to provide their user or group with the objective message or experience and are seeking a technological way to ensure that the process is successful either through retention or enjoyment that rightly could be defined as the user experience.
    Hence the ‘experience’ is the client’s end result and not typically part of what the AV Integrator provides as a primary service. The subset disciplines within the AV industry can create input to the process and they can be defined as software or program creation / implementation, IT systems management, interior design, etc.
    To position an end result of what the AV industry enables as part of the industries primary name is creating a silo understanding of the industry. The AV industry provides the tooling and the ‘users’ engage their own ‘experience’.
    If an additional perspective was to be added to the AV acronym for Audio and Visual, it should be Sensory; Historically the industry provided sound and / or visual devices to effect an ‘experience’. Today’s experiential AV systems now deploy smell, physical movement & vibration, air flow, heat, cold, etc. to trigger even more human receptors to enable an even greater ‘experience’. However, they all remain at the forefront of the process as technological tools which is the primary function of Audio Visual Integrators.
    If the propose behind the renaming is to better reflect the industries breadth then yes, it should do so. But not by focusing on one segment of the objective market for AV which is to create an ‘experience’.
    Our industry needs to refocus attention to our technological art of creating sensory response tools. It’s not just Audio Visual. Humans have more than eyes and ears that can be tweaked to create responses or experiences.
    Perhaps we should just simply be the Audio Visual Integration Association ?

  • I was in Chantilly at 7 pm when it was revealed. We then spent days working on it the new vision. Very exciting and it will be a powerful shift for us all I believe.

  • I think it’s great that they are addressing the future of the industry with the name change — forward thinking. However, with any acronym I always wonder what it stands for. So I hope they have a strong tagline to go with it, like: ‘redefining the AV experience’ or something that capitalizes on the word ‘experience’ so others understand. It can be done–with consistent messaging.

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