At the annual Facebook Connect conference, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook group’s official rebrand to Meta, which will focus on bringing the metaverse to life and help people connect. …
Transform spoke to brand strategists and design experts to explore what the rebrand means for Facebook’s future and reputation. …
“The renaming of Facebook’s parent company to Meta changes nothing for them, especially not the public perception of Facebook as a force for chaos, misinformation, and privacy violation. Mark Zuckerberg, a simulacrum of a human being, proposes that we will join his online environment called the “metaverse”, presumably as an escape from the dystopian society that Facebook has helped create. The name might be better understood as a reference to their renewed focus on mining and selling metadata left behind by their users. When individuals, groups, and Congress complain about privacy concerns, the business formerly known as Facebook can say that it was being completely transparent when it renamed the company.
“Besides having some linguistic challenges—the word meta has other meanings in languages around the word—the name is just vague enough to serve as an empty vessel for Facebook’s attempt to rebrand itself as … something. The product name itself won’t change, and people will continue to refer to the whole entity as Facebook—just as no one, besides their lawyers, call the parent company of Google by the name Alphabet. As the saying goes, a difference which makes no difference is no difference.”
– Laurel Sutton, founder, Catchword Branding
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