They say it is the best kept secret on Facebook, only for the eyes of the company's top leadership and those closest to Mark Zuckerberg. The rebrand and name of Facebook has been the talk of the tech world. And although it is only a rumor on the table, everything indicates that throughout this week, at the latest during the conference on Thursday, October 28, the empire of the social network par excellence will mark a before and after.
The idea is clear: change the name to the parent company of Facebook, which now maintains the same name, with the idea of bringing together all the businesses. A move that we already saw with Google in its change to Alphabet. The message was clear: Google stopped being just a search engine to become something more ; After all, advertising is still the most profitable business for the tech giant. In the case of Facebook it would be similar. With Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus and now the metaverse, the company wants to reflect its new spirit. Especially for this last field.
Zuckerberg's commitment to virtual reality in the style of Ready Player One – hopefully not with the same results – reaches the point of predicting that the new name of the conglomerate will go by the idea of his new obsession. The metaverse could be weighing more than the concept of social networks inside the businessman's head . At least in theory.
In the popular imagination, this Facebook ad has dark and dark. On the one hand, and as the marketing expert Andy Stalman explains to Hypertextual, “it must be made clear that this is a name change of the parent company and not of the social network; and even so, this is not certain that it will happen since we are playing on the terrain of hypothesis. ”
For José Luis Ramírez, professor of Marketing at UDIMA, “this is a marketing strategy 100% made in the USA that happens to filter a medium (The Verge) to test the waters and that serves to distract the eyes from the main objective” . Which one is this? The great reputational crisis that the company is experiencing and that, until two days ago, was experiencing one of the lowest moments in its history. All the experts agree: as much as Facebook changes its name, even if it is its parent, it is the root of the story that has to change.
However, Facebook is not the only one that has pulled a name change throughout history. Nor is it the only one that does it to reorganize its fabric or to wash an image in low hours.
Brand changes, more common than you think
The so-called rebrandings or brand changes are nothing new. Nothing that the incombustible Facebook has invented. They have existed since there are companies, also since the world advances so fast that the original conception of the brand is obsolete. Also since globalization it has promoted the purchase of companies outside the national territory. Still, there are always types.
Google, the best example but not the only one Google, now Aphabet, provided the best example of rebranding in the corporate world. Born as an Internet search engine in a Silicon Valley garage, little did Larry Page and Sergey Brin imagine back in 2003 that their company would get where it is today.
Its mobile division, YouTube of course, the hardware part or the cloud. The investment division in third-party companies, Waymo for autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence or the health division. However, in 2015 Google announced that it was changing everything to Alphabet. The essence of the company, however, remained the same.
“Changes in names in brands and companies are often associated with changes in brand architecture” , explains Oriol Iglesias, professor at the ESADE business school. A change in architecture that has been present in much of the history of technology and that now also affects Facebook. Netflix also lived it in their flesh: Qwister was the division of the company for the offline business, and Netflix was in charge of the future of streaming. Finally, Netflix decided to unify everything under the brand we know today.
Can you imagine that Instagram was not called like that? It is possibly one of the best chosen names to define the activity of a social network
And the changes not only associated with the architecture, but also with the perception of the brand, are a constant. Can you imagine that Instagram was not called that? It is possibly one of the best chosen names to define the activity of a social network. The reality is that it went through Burbn before, to change to Scotch and finally, in 2016, to reach its current name. Later, Facebook tied the knot with the company and made history by staying with one of the most loyal and defined communities. Shortly after, he repeated the strategy with WhatsApp.
Also on the list is Tinder, formerly Matchbox . PayPal originally known as Confinity. McAfee –which still carries the history of its controversial founder–, Amazon that tried to succeed as Renteless or Twitter that left the vocals in its first version of Twttr. A common line: they all had complex names, difficult to remember and pronounce.
Facebook's strategy is not new Photo by Alex Haney on Unsplash Name changes for reputational reasons are nothing new. In fact, well worked they can be successful in their goal. In addition, the collective memory is usually bad and, sooner or later, they end up achieving their goal.
It was in 2008, with the world financial crisis, when more name changes took place . Financial entities or investment and insurance companies sought the name change to remove the role of baddies from the film. Even here in Spain, Banco Santander approached changing the name of Santander Banca Privada to Santander Patrimonios. The entity had to get rid of the relationship of the first brand with Lehman Brothers and its bankruptcy months before.
And in the historical, many anecdotes. Mr. Proper – world brand – decided to have a particular name for each region due to piracy problems. Mitsubishi Pajero , although only locally distributed in the Middle East, soon crossed borders. It is the clear image that the local can become international.
In the range of international name changes. Kraft Foods went on to conglomerate into Mondelez. And when it comes to reputation, the biggest case is still that of Accenture, a brand born after a dispute with Andersen Worldwide. To leave behind, specifically the image Arthur Andersen had left after the controversy with Enron; the latter two used financial schemes to hide company accounts, falsify accounts and destroy documents. Today few remember Accenture's darker past.
Facebook, if you change your brand you will have to change your life
Things are clear: Facebook wants to change the brand to dive fully into the metaverse. One that already takes up much of your funding. A few days ago, in fact, the company announced the hiring of 10,000 employees across Europe to create this parallel reality. However, as they announced the good news, problems began to pile up on the desks of technology. The technical problems that left the world without service for almost 24 hours, trials and government hearings left and right and the icing on the cake: the leak of internal studies promoting social networks even knowing the damage in the young population.
With this panorama, and in addition to its new businesses, Facebook wants to make a clean slate. For Ramírez, “it makes no sense to maintain the Facebook brand for the entire group when it is also the social network that has the least growth and the one with the worst image”; however, this “multi-brand strategy serves to divert attention a bit” . A way to change the course that Facebook had lost after months of ravings. Although they go for the most basic epic:
“If they also pull storytelling and wrap everything with the word metaverse, which appears in a cult novel for sci-fi and cyberpunk fans, they kill several birds with one stone.”
José Luis Ramírez, Professor of Marketing at UDIMA Although the monkey is dressed in silk … Facebook stays GIF of Zuckerberg on Giphy “There is a challenge, the name change should bring together the new proposal of the company. If you want to change the reputational perspective, it has to come with a change in the experience offered and address the most sensitive issues in a transparent way,” explains Iglesias . Facebook, you have a serious problem in this field, things as they are.
The credibility of the Facebook leader is not going through its best moment and his word, denied on countless occasions, neither
While it is true that the change is for the company's parent company, the expansive effect that its ravings have had in recent years is undeniable. The issue of addiction in social networks, hateful or extremist speeches and content, as well as the plague of fake news – whether political or about the coronavirus – have been the maxim of its three pillars: Facebook, Instagram and , of course, WhatsApp. The brand change, therefore, “is not just a logo change, it is a transformation of the vision, values and ethics if you have them,” says Stalman.
Precisely the problem of ethics is the great debate for Facebook, also that of credibility. Despite the millions of users that the company controls, Zuckerberg's continuous public statements to solve the problems that have arisen have ended on deaf ears. The credibility of the leader of Facebook is not going through its best moment and his word , denied on countless occasions, neither.
And yes, Facebook is relatively young and under that title it could have the right to be wrong. With 2,700 million users today and their proven interference in the behavior of the population, they have too much responsibility to be wrong.
All in all, hopefully Facebook changes its name and this comes with a real statement of intent. Although the saying and the newspaper library are not, at the moment, on his side.
