Meet The New Avnet: 'Sherpa' To IoT Innovators

For decades electronics distribution company Avnet has kept a low profile as it has grown into a $26 billion global concern. But that’s about to change as the company pivots to exploit new revenue streams. Today the company is unveiling a rebranding and its first major branding campaign to showcase its bid to become a “Sherpa” for entrepreneurial makers in the burgeoning era of the Internet Of Things.

Growth in the company’s traditional business—making and distributing components like semiconductors--has slowed. Sales were down 6% in its last fiscal year. 

That’s driven a strategic rethink at the company and a resulting plan to focus resources on helping innovators design, refine and help scale their products for market, says Avnet CMO Kevin Sellers, who joined the company a little over a year ago to lead the firm’s new branding and awareness efforts.

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“Our brand means nothing,” said Sellers. That’s been okay as a behind-the-scenes B2B global technology distributor. But with the pivot to focus on the IoT market, which is still in its infancy, the firm wants the entrepreneurial world to know that Avnet is here to help them.

“We want to help makers in the IoT arena take their ideas to product and their products to market,” said Sellers. While the legacy business isn’t going away, being “Sherpa” to makers in the IoT world is “the new mission and we’re creating a new public face for it.” 

The firm enlisted Red Peak Branding and ad shop R&R Partners (well known for its “What Happens In Vegas” campaign) to help create that new public face, which features a new company look and a global campaign entitled “Reach Further.”

The campaign, said Sellers,  is designed to showcase “how we uniquely help our customers navigate each stage of the product lifecycle.”

The firm’s new logo replaces red with green coloring to symbolize growth and possibility. The letter “A” in the new logo features two vertical bars slanting toward each other with a connecting horizontal bar at the bottom of the letter that symbolizes how the firm brings together the customer and supply sides, said Sellers. “The message is we’re your guide through the process.”

Ads include IoT startups that Avnet has recently helped scale to market including Owlet, which developed a baby sock that tracks heart rate and oxygen levels in infants so that parents can monitor from other rooms while babies are sleeping in their cribs. 

The campaign, said to be the largest in its 96-year history, includes a mix of B2B print and digital advertising, paid and organic social media, digital display and video, and search engine marketing. There’s also a new website and engagement program for Avnet’s 15,000 employees around the world. Supporting activities include trade shows and events and corporate social responsibility programs to extend and build awareness.

The campaign follows the recent acquisitions of companies that help support the firm’s new mission by adding to its expertise in the conception, design and prototyping processes. Earlier this year it also sold its legacy Technology Solutions business for an estimated $2.7 billon.  

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