The American-Israel Chamber of Commerce Southeast has rebranded itself in a bid to better capture the essence of its work forging connections between the country and the region.
The chamber will now be known as the America Israel Business Connector, or conexx for short.
Shai Robkin, the chamber’s new president and CEO, said the change was the result of a long and thoughtful deliberation by a strategic planning committee set up soon after his arrival in August 2013.
But the idea germinated before that, when he met with Israel’s chief branding official, who talked about encapsulating the nation’s appeal in a simple concept: “creative energy,” Mr. Robkin said at the chamber’s Eagle Star Awards Gala June 11.
That set him thinking about how the chamber could better tell its story. The AICCSE, the acronym by which the chamber had been known, gave incomplete impressions to Israelis who are already ill-informed about the South’s innovative business climate.
Many thought the “A” at the beginning stood for Atlanta, and the “Southeast Region” at the end gave the sense that the chamber was part of a national organization, when in fact it’s independent.
The logo was another source of confusion.
“More people identified the flying object on the star as a dove or an airplane or even a dolphin than they did an eagle,” he said, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. “There are, no doubt, some even in this room who are just now figuring out the connection the logo has with the name of the event we are at tonight,” the Eagle Star gala.
The image of the chamber in the minds of Israelis was limited, just as is their vision of the Southeast U.S.
While paying homage to the chamber’s 22-year history and continuing its legacy of assisting with major investment transactions, the chamber’s new brand seeks to better leverage that heritage for stronger connections from a more diverse geographic pool.
“We need to be viewed as the ‘go to’ address for anyone in the American business community looking to connect with Israel’s creative energy,” Mr. Robkin said.
Visit www.conexx.org to see the new brand and learn more about the business connector. View a copy of Mr. Robkin’s remarks here.
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