The names of individuals, issues—and companies—form how we understand them. Each dad or mum has had the expertise of naming a child after which exclaiming that the new child instantly “is” its new identify. Likewise, an organization that adjustments its identify adjustments its picture in everybody else’s eyes.
Fb is much from the primary firm that has sought to revamp its picture this manner. Historical past suggests, nevertheless, {that a} company re-christening can create a giant downside: A brand new identify, catchy and brief, can come to embody every little thing folks already disliked about an organization however weren’t beforehand in a position to articulate.
Look what occurred after Tribune Publishing Co. modified its identify to tronc Inc. in 2016.
The corporate variously described its new identify as a mashup of “Tribune On-line Content material” or because the British time period for a restaurant-tip field through which cash is pooled for later distribution. The thought gave the impression to be that tronc Inc. would pool the world’s information and parcel it out to shoppers on-line.
But, whereas it known as itself “the subsequent media firm,” tronc was jettisoning a few of its finest belongings. The identify made the corporate’s travails inescapable. Quickly, comic John Oliver was exclaiming that tronc “sounds just like the noise an ejaculating elephant makes.”
Right here’s a extra severe instance of a reputation change that closed minds as an alternative of opening them.
In early 1987, UAL Inc., the dad or mum of United Airways, introduced it will change its identify to Allegis Corp. In search of to develop its Hertz, Hilton and Westin models, the corporate needed to indicate that it wasn’t merely an airline, but in addition a car-rental and hotel-room supplier.
Buyers didn’t like that idea, which others had already unsuccessfully tried—and the identify Allegis rapidly got here to epitomize the corporate’s unpopular technique. The late-night tv host Johnny Carson even mocked the identify in considered one of his monologues.
One disgruntled shareholder was an opportunistic real-estate developer named Donald Trump, who had purchased almost 5% of the corporate’s inventory. He mentioned the identify Allegis appeared like “the subsequent world-class illness.” It made him “extra militant as an investor and extra keen to talk out towards administration, as a result of I believed it was so incorrect,” Mr. Trump mentioned in June 1987. “And I believe it had an vital psychological function. It introduced out much more anger at administration and made lots of people say that they had lastly had it.”
That’s as a result of a reputation is simpler to criticize than a method, says Margaret Wolfson, founding father of River and Wolf LLC, a naming company in New York. “To speak a few technique takes much more time and evaluation,” she says. “However names are handles: They’re simple to seize onto, and criticizing them can flip right into a blood sport.”
When veteran airline government Stephen Wolf got here in as Allegis’ chief government on the finish of 1987, he was “detached to the identify,” he advised me this week, however targeted on altering the technique to shed the non-airline belongings. In Might 1988, shareholders voted to ditch Allegis and rename the corporate UAL Corp.—nearly precisely the identical as its earlier id.
To me, what’s most exceptional about this story is that Allegis doesn’t appear to be such a nasty identify in spite of everything.
Take into account an enormous staffing and business-services agency based in 1983 and primarily based in Hanover, Md. With roughly 20,000 workers and greater than $12 billion in annual income, it ranked twenty second on Forbes’ 2020 checklist of largest personal corporations within the U.S.
Launched in 1983 as Aerotek Inc., the agency rebranded itself in 2001. Its new identify? Allegis Group.
Loads of folks ridiculed Fb for altering its identify to Meta—joking that it’s brief for “metastasizing,” or “I meta woman” who grew to become an antivaxer, and so forth—however the danger isn’t that individuals received’t just like the identify. It’s that they’ll prefer it too nicely—as a pithy incarnation of every little thing they dislike in regards to the firm.
Mr. Zuckerberg has mentioned that it’s “form of a ridiculous factor” to recommend that the identify change is supposed to drown out damaging publicity, equivalent to The Wall Road Journal’s revelations earlier this yr about Fb’s advertising and marketing and different practices. As a substitute, the renaming demonstrates the corporate’s dedication to the metaverse, or the rising digital world through which folks can store, socialize, work and play nearly with out restrict.
Fb’s attraction amongst youthful customers of its conventional companies is fading, so the corporate is shifting into the metaverse.
The Meta identify imparts extra urgency to that mission. As Mr. Zuckerberg wrote on the finish of October, “I hope folks around the globe come to know the Meta model and the longer term we stand for.”
What isn’t clear is how a lot time and power everybody will need to decide to that future. Some shoppers will like it. To others, it’d sound like a dystopia of “dwelling” on a video display screen whereas consuming chilly pizza alone in a windowless basement, nearly by no means seeing one other human face-to-face.
The Latin saying “nomen est omen” might be loosely translated as “your identify is your destiny.” By renaming itself Meta, Fb has recognized itself inextricably with a metaverse future. Within the eyes of the general public, the enterprise will grow to be what it’s named. That would find yourself making the corporate much more of a lightning rod for criticism than it already is.
In his common Clever Investor column, Jason Zweig writes about traits within the investing world, portfolio technique and monetary decision-making. Join his e-newsletter right here.
Supply: Live Mint