Russ Curry, Ministry of New Media
The French industry doesn’t (yet) have its own Draught Proofing Advisory Association or a Doberman Pinscher Alliance but it does share the same preoccupation with the rest of the world in finding an appropriate term to describe our profession.
The industry body, the jauntily named ‘Association pour la Promotion de la Communication Audiovisuelle Dynamique‘ (APCAD) was set up in 2005 by young bloods who weren’t satisfied with being just a digital division of POPAI, and who created the delightful term “communication audiovisuelle dynamique” which trips off the tongue like toffee, to describe the profession.
Meanwhile, everybody just talks about “Affichage Dynamique” (Moving Posters) which does at least make the point that it’s different from “Affichage Statique” (Static Posters) but which just doesn’t do justice to the richness of the media.
A commission was set up to study the possibility of a name change and came up with a short-list of eight new names, two of which are French! These names were then published by our friends over at Ooh-tv in July and in the best traditions of democracy, readers were invited to vote and offer additional comments to the association.
The association cordially invited all stakeholders in the industry to participate – ‘from integrators to ad-sales agencies, including content creators, screen manufactures, software publishers’ – and, judging by their web-site, not restricted to association members.
For the record, the eight possible names are:
- Affichage Numérique
- Affichage Dynamique
- Digital Media
- Digital Signage
- Digital OOH (DOOH)
- Network TV
- Screen Media
- Out of Home TV (OOHTV)
The result will be revealed at a gala which will be held on September 22nd at which the organisation will also announce progress made by other commissions and other work undertaken in recent months – and, presumably, announce its own rebranding?
We will of course bring you the result next month.
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