The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Facebook Inc, you may have heard, has changed its name to Meta. Setting aside, briefly, the vital debate on Facebook Inc’s myriad evils, and focusing specifically on the name and brand, there are some elements of note.
Given there is no “good†name for a “bad†company — and that nothing Mark Zuckerberg might do could ever win the internet — avoiding catastrophe was the bar. So far, for Zuck, so good. First, the name.
Meta is fine. Not fabulous, not horrific, but fine. However, “fine†may be the sweet spot for such an endeavor. Too elaborate, creative or funny a name would have merely added fuel to the raging fire, rather than doused it with dullness. When Penguin merged with Random House, the world crossed its fingers for “Penguin House†or even “Random Penguin†— but had to acknowledge the good-sense sobriety of “Penguin Random House.â€
People have rightly noted the tendency of in-trouble or out-of-touch brands to rename. At one end of the spectrum are brands that have the taint of horror (Blackwater, Philip Morris). At the other, are brands that merely wish to reposition their public perception (Weight Watchers, Dunkin’ Donuts), or react to changing times. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with rebranding. PayPal used to be Confinity; eBay was Auction Web; and Instagram was Burbn. And let’s not forget, calling an $839-billion advertising platform after a printed college “face book†is as anachronistic as Britain’s Carphone Warehouse — which for many years neither sold carphones, nor operated from a warehouse.
Of course, Facebook is not like other brands — not least because it contains multitudes. On the one hand,
Instagram is a machine calibrated to create and monetise FOMO, and to hell with the toxic consequences. On the other, WhatsApp is a telecommunications lifeline for hundreds of millions, as the world discovered when its servers crashed for just six hours.
Although “meta†translates as “died†in Hebrew, the name does not appear to be existentially offensive in any of the world’s major languages. And presumably the company has deep enough pockets to settle any trademark disputes. To be fair, the version of the logo most widely distributed does not tell the whole story. Like all major modern brands, Meta is more than a static mark.
—Bloomberg