New York, October 29 (BUS): Facebook announced Thursday that it is changing its name to Meta Platforms Inc. , to join a long list of companies that have tried to rebrand over the years, according to the Associated Press.
The move comes as the company deals with the fallout from the Facebook Papers, a leaked document that exposed the ways Facebook has ignored internal reports and warnings of the damage its social network has done or amplified around the world.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company will focus on the “metaverse,” a computer-generated virtual space where people can interact. It includes other growing businesses that aren’t a site of the same name, such as the Oculus VR hardware branch and Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality program that is still in beta testing mode.
The company’s rebranding strategy sometimes works – like Andersen Consulting, which changed its name to Accenture – but sometimes fails – for example, when Tribune Co. tried to rebrand to Tronc and was widely mocked. Here is a sample.
1997: VALUJET TO AIRTRAN
ValuJet was founded in 1992 as a low-cost airline, but a 1996 plane crash that killed 110 people left the brand lackluster. It acquired AirTran Airways in 1997 and took the name of that airline. Southwest Airlines bought AirTran in 2011 and discontinued AirTran flights in 2014.
2001: ANDERSEN CONSULTURE TO ACCENTURE
Andersen Consulting was a successful consulting firm from the accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Friction with the parent company led to a legal battle that ended with Andersen Consulting which was not legally able to use the Andersen name, so it was rebranded to Accenture. The timing of the rebranding was fortunate when Arthur Andersen became embroiled in the Enron financial scandal later in 2001.
2003: Philip Morris to ALTRIA
Tobacco giant Philip Morris changed its name to Altria in an effort to focus public perception more on the consumer food products it owns under the Kraft brand rather than tobacco. But people still equated Altria with cigarettes, and Altria ended up ditching Kraft in 2007 and refocusing on tobacco.
2011: NETFLIX TO QWIKSTER
Netflix did not rename the entire company Qwikster, but in 2011 it announced that it would split into two services, with the online service we know today remaining from Netflix, and the physical DVD rental service, known for its red envelopes, renamed Qwikster.
In the wake of price increases for customers who suddenly had to pay for two services instead of one, subscribers were in no mood to joke about the eccentric name and criticized it on the Internet. Netflix dropped the name after a few months.
2014: CVS CAREMARK CORP. to CVS HEALTH
The company, now known as CVS Health, has a long history of buying drugstores and retail chains to expand, and in 2006 it bought Caremark Pharmacy Benefits Manager and became CVS Caremark Corp. It changed its name to CVS Health in 2014 and stopped selling cigarettes in an effort to rebrand as a health-conscious company, not just a drugstore chain that makes money from prescriptions.
2015: GOOGLE TO ALPHABET
In 2015, Google was facing growing complaints from investors that its forays outside its core research business, dubbed “moonshots,” were not transparent enough. She was also facing growing antitrust concerns over her advertising business. So the company has rebranded itself as Alphabet, a group that is gaining more financial resources for its operations beyond research.
2016: TRIBUNE Publishing Company in Tronc
Tribune Publishing was founded in 1847, and has a long history as the publisher of the Chicago Tribune and other major daily newspapers. But in 2016, newspaper advertising revenue was fading and large chains of companies were consolidating. In an effort to fend off a takeover attempt by Gannett and boost online advertising dollars, Tribune has announced a name change for Tronc Inc. , which stands for “Tribune Online Content”. The name was widely derided, and Tronc changed its name back to Tribune Publishing in 2018.
2017: Verizon split into Verizon Media
Verizon had high hopes when it spent about $9 billion acquiring AOL and Yahoo over two years starting in 2015. The media companies have hosted a division called Oath. But the hoped-for revenue from the old online brands did not materialize. In the year following the Yahoo purchase, Verizon wrote down the value of the joint operation, roughly the $4.5 billion it spent on Yahoo, and renamed it Verizon Media. Verizon sold the division earlier this year to a private equity firm for $5 billion, and it was renamed again to Yahoo.
2018: PRICELINE TO BOOKINGS HOLDINGS
Priceline’s name change to Bookings Holdings reflects the shift in popularity from Priceline.com, which began selling flights, to Booking.com, a Dutch hotel and vacation rental site Priceline acquired in 2005, and is now the company’s most profitable website. Priceline has grown rapidly after its founding in 1997 due to the popularity of its price advantage, but hotel and vacation rentals are more profitable than selling flights.
2018: Hours of Weights to WW
Switching from name to initials is a common way of rebranding: KFC to KFC or restoring appliances to RH, for example. Weight Watchers has switched to its initials in an effort to move away from the idea that it’s a diet company, as people increasingly realize that dieting isn’t healthy and that weight isn’t necessarily linked to overall health.