In September, former Fb worker Frances Haugen leaked inside paperwork to the Wall Avenue Journal that exposed some fairly incriminating data.
Quickly after, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced that Fb can be altering its title to Meta. It was a traditional transfer. Firm messes up. Firm loses public favor. Firm comes up with a brand new title and branding.
The artist previously often called Fb is simply the most recent in a grand custom of firms that modified their title following a public scandal. Listed here are another examples that paved the best way.
British Petroleum to BP
Credit score: Los Angeles Instances through Getty Imag
Oil and gasoline firms usually do not have the very best environmental reputations, however BP takes the cake. In 2000, the oil and gasoline big modified its title from British Petroleum to BP, revealed a brand new inexperienced and yellow sunburst emblem, and adopted the slogan “past petroleum.” This was all in an try to seem extra environmentally pleasant.
However then there was the lethal explosion of an oil refinery in Texas in 2005, the oil spill in Alaska that leaked 200,000 gallons into the Prudhoe Bay in 2006, and naturally, the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, which was the biggest oil spill in historical past. It seems, altering the title didn’t make the corporate extra environmentally accountable.
Blackwater to Xe to Academi
Blackwater’s popularity bought so dangerous it needed to change its title greater than as soon as. In 2006, a Blackwater contractor “bought drunk and shot useless” one of many Iraqi vice chairman’s bodyguards. In 2007, the corporate was sued for negligence by the households of Blackwater contractors who have been killed in Fallujah. Additionally in 2007, Blackwater contractors opened fireplace in Baghdad, killing 17 Iraqi civilians.
4 Blackwater contractors have been convicted of the taking pictures and sentenced to jail and the U.S. State Division determined to not renew its contract with the corporate. Erik Prince (brother of former Trump White Home official Betsy DeVos) stepped down as CEO, and the corporate was renamed Xe. In 2011, Xe was acquired by a bunch of personal traders and the corporate modified its title once more, to Academi. Now, it is owned by an umbrella firm referred to as Constellis Holdings
Philip Morris to Altria
Constructing a enterprise across the cool issue of a product could be a drawback when the product is decided by the Supreme Court docket to be dangerous and addictive. By 2003, individuals had discovered that cigarettes weren’t wholesome, so Philip Morris, one of many world’s largest tobacco firms, determined that it wanted to enhance its public picture. Additionally, it wished a reputation that encompassed its different merchandise, since on the time it additionally owned Kraft Meals and beer firm SABMiller. So it modified its title to Altria.
Did it work? Sort of. Cigarette gross sales within the U.S. have been in decline since 2001, in order that in all probability hasn’t been nice for company morale. However, like a power smoker’s cough, Altria did not go away. As an alternative, it diversified its holdings, shopping for up smokeless tobacco and the wine firm UST Inc., and investing in hashish firm Cronos Group and e-cigarette model Juul Labs. Apparently vaping is not superb for you both, however this is not Philip Morris’ … I imply Altria’s … first rodeo.
Lance Armstrong Basis to Livestrong Basis
Credit score: Getty Photographs
It was a Cinderella Story. Man overcomes late-stage most cancers, goes on to win the Tour de France seven occasions in a row, and dates Sheryl Crow.
Then Lance Armstrong admitted to utilizing performance-enhancing medicine, and all of it got here crashing down.
Armstrong’s heroic story was the premise for his eponymous basis. That, and people yellow silicone bracelets that everybody was obsessive about for some time. So, when it was found in 2012 that Armstrong cheated, the muse thought it was greatest to consciously uncouple. Armstrong stepped down as chairman, and the muse modified its title to the Livestrong Basis.
The inspiration by no means fairly recovered. Income has dropped considerably since 2012. However with a rebrand and mission shift to funding most cancers analysis in 2020, the Livestrong Basis hopes to rebuild.
McAfee to Intel Safety to McAfee
In 1987, John McAfee based the eponymous firm famed for its antivirus software program. Within the mid ’90s, the eccentric entrepreneur left the corporate, and what occurred after is so much. He began a yoga retreat in Colorado, then moved to Belize after shedding his fortune the place he constructed his personal non-public navy compound, then he went into hiding after turning into a suspect in a homicide investigation in Belize.
In 2019, McAfee tweeted that he hadn’t filed a tax return in eight years and that “taxation is illegitimate.” To nobody’s shock, he was indicted for this and never paying taxes on the thousands and thousands he earned by way of selling cryptocurrency, talking engagements, and different revenue streams. In June 2021, McAfee was discovered useless by suicide in a jail cell in Spain the place he was awaiting extradition to the U.S.
Any of those antics would have been sufficient to completely harm a namesake model. However the tipping level got here in 2013 when McAfee, sporting frosted suggestions and tribal tattoos, posted a really unusual and NSFW video trashing the corporate for the way it had modified since he ran it. Owned by Intel on the time, McAfee Associates modified to Intel Safety Group in 2014.
However by 2016, Intel spun off Intel Safety Group, and the corporate modified its title again to McAfee. In a 2017 interview with ITBusiness.ca, CTO Steve Grogan defined the choice saying, “the McAfee model has immense worth.” Regardless of John McAfee’s greatest efforts to destroy the corporate’s popularity, the McAfee model nonetheless resonated with shoppers.
Maybe this implies we will count on Meta to alter again to Fb sooner or later?
