Adam Kos When Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in 2004, it was practically just a directory of Harvard students. Two decades, 90 botched acquisitions and billions of dollars later, Facebook is known not only as a social network, but also as a company. Well, not really the second one anymore. A new Meta is coming, but it probably won't save the company.
Here are two different perspectives on the two different situations in which companies most often change their names. The first is if the company's reach outgrows its name. We saw it with Google, which became Alphabet, i.e. the umbrella company not only for the world's most used search engine, but also, for example, the YouTube network or Nest products. Snapchat, in turn, rebranded itself as Snap after releasing its "photo glasses." So these are the examples where the renaming was beneficial, and where the problems were not completely avoided.
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Especially in the USA, providers of television content, i.e. typically cable companies, often change their names. They have a bad reputation for customer service here, and are often renamed to distract from the original label and start with a clean slate. This is, for example, also the case with the renaming of Xfinity to Spectrum. It tried to distance itself from the case of deceptive advertising, when it declared a certain connection speed compared to the one it actually provided.
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Vratislav Holub Problems cannot be run away from, they should be solved
In the case of Facebook, i.e. Meta, it is more complicated. This case can be viewed from both these sides. The Facebook name has recently led to a certain lack of confidence in some of its recent endeavors, including its expansion into cryptocurrencies, but also privacy issues and ultimately the regulation of the network and the possible break-up of its conglomerate by the US government. By renaming the parent company, Facebook could give itself a chance to overcome this. If that's the intention. Still, branding experts aren't convinced that renaming the company will do anything to fix its reputational problems, or that it will mean some distance from recent scandals.
"Everyone knows what Facebook is," says Jim Heininger, the company's founder Rebranding Experts, which focuses exclusively on renaming organizations. "The most effective way for Facebook to address the challenges that have recently tarnished its brand is through corrective action, not attempts to change its name or install a new brand architecture."
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For a better tomorrow?
If the above is not the intention, everything that was said at the Connect 2021 conference, but it makes sense after all. Facebook is no longer only about this social network, but also creates its own hardware under the Oculus brand, where it has really big plans for its AR and VR. And why associate something like this with some, albeit appropriately busy, but still controversial social network?
It will help. But it will only help the META group. That's why they also establish it. The question about help on the user's side is kind of pointless, it is not known what kind of help it is supposed to be.
Although they will be called Meta, the bracelets will still require Facebook :-D