Facebook rebrand won’t hide it from crisis, expert warns
By Ben Cousins, CTVNews.ca writer
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TORONTO, Ontario (CTV Network) — If Facebook Inc.’s rebrand to “Meta” was a clever ploy to distract users from ongoing crises the company is facing, it will have to try much harder, one expert says.
On Thursday, Facebook Inc. rebranded itself as Meta Platforms Inc., or simply Meta for short, to reflect the company’s commitment to growing the “metaverse,” according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. All the apps and programs Facebook has created will remain the same name.
Lindsay Broadhead, senior vice-president of communications and public affairs at the Toronto Regional Board of Trade, said if the company is trying to distance itself from the other issues it faces, a simple name change is not going to do it.
“I don’t think you can dissociate Facebook from anything that it’s going to rebrand itself as quite yet,” she told CTV News Channel on Thursday. “It’s going to be quite the task to disassociate the two.”
“I don’t think the shadow that Facebook currently casts will ever be diminished until they actually deal with the challenges that they’re facing.”
Earlier this week, the Facebook Papers, a series of leaked documents from the company, have portrayed the social media giant as more interested in profits than eliminating the hate, political division and misinformation that spreads on the website. The documents are considered the biggest crisis in Facebook’s history.
Broadhead questioned the timing of the rebrand, as most other companies would wait to resolve any legal issues or crises before making a change.
“This is somewhat unprecedented because the size of the organization, but usually the company would deal with (and) address some of the baggage that it’s carrying,” she said.
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