Katherine O'Donnell

On paper, the rationale they’re communicating is that the new name will represent their values, specifically their shift to creating an entire metaverse (think 2nd Life or Roblox) where people can engage and interact in entirely immersive ways. A rebrand this big doesn’t happen overnight, so I’m inclined to believe it’s aspirational even if I also believe the efforts were accelerated give the latest publicity.

https://www.economist.com/business/facebooks-rumoured-name-change-reflects-its-ambitions-and-its-weakness-1/21805755

Whether it’s effective? As I said on the lecture, I don’t think most people think, let alone say, Alphabet when they think about technology leaders (another A! Our acronyms are doomed.)

That being said, Google’s rebrand was more about bringing their disparate parts under a common identity. Calling everything Google detracts from their non-search ventures.

That’s kind of what seems to be happening in practice here, but not how it’s being positioned by the media. Facebook will still be Facebook (or “the Facebook”, if you’re of a certain age). It’s the parent company that’s changing. Facebook now will be “Facebook, a [rebrand] company” just as Instagram is currently “Instagram. a Facebook company (though we try really hard to obscure that when we can because we secretly know Facebook is uncool and where your mom hangs out and Instagram is not that and you should totally spend all your time here you cool kids!).

As another example, who here knows what Altria does?

Phillip Morris might be a more familiar name and I can argue their rebrand to Altria effectively did reset their public image. But that is as much because so many people had already moved away from their products and/or knew them under their trade names (Marlboro, etc.).

Branding is convoluted. Yes, it needs to convey your values. It will never truly do more than represent those values. I find it extremely unlikely people will wake up later this month and suddenly be like “what is this new social network I am part of that mysteriously did not exist yesterday and now has all of my info pre-loaded?”.

Maybe if Facebook deprecates their current products and launches something new, it will take a lot of time. Just like Altria keeps looking for new ways to sell tobacco without calling them cigarettes.

I am still shocked Facebook is rebranding. They want to be known for the metaverse, being that they believe it is our future, even though it currently doesn’t exist. Big companies like Facebook and Microsoft have been investing heavily in the AR/VR world. If they can successfully shift gears more so away from social media, I think the rebrand will be worthwhile. As of right now, Facebook, the logo, the design, the platform, are known. Without context users know Facebook, especially because it has the widest range of generations on it. I just don’t think something so known will be able to change. It involves compliance from user to adapt to the rebrand. When I-HOP had their promotion of I-HOB, they wanted their consumers to start calling it that too, but that did not happen.

I am not shocked they are rebranding, but I don’t think it will make much of a difference in the long run. Facebook is trying out outrun the negative stereotypes that are associated with it, but people still continue to use the platform as well as Instagram. I think people will continue to call it Facebook, continue to use it, and they won’t care about the rest.

Wow! Thanks for the insight. I honestly didn’t even think about how the mobile apps like Uber Eats and Doordash were hurting our local restaurants and businesses. Although, at the end of the day it seems that mobile technology does help customers by making it easy to shop and discover. Also now realizing why all those Doordash Ads are on Tik Tok promoting potentially making $20/hr to drivers… It all makes sense now.

But this is unacceptable the fees they are charging these businesses. I think these delivery services need to come up with a more sustainable and ethical business model that doesn’t put all the fees onto the business. But as consumer, I don’t want them on myself either. It just seems like being a partner of these delivery services doesn’t yield as much benefit as it should. Sure, access to a larger market of consumers, but for the price? Not for 46 meals with only $380 of profit. (from article).

Great post, Katherine.

There are many sayings regarding how there is opportunity in disruption. Prior to the pandemic, many of these services agreed, but struggled to gain customers both due to a lack of purpose (few barriers to going out to eat or pick up take out) as well as the fees required.

I wonder if services like Doordash would have even survived outside of the densest urban environments if not for the pandemic. Of course, that’s not what happened and the pandemic “solved” both problems for these companies: people suddenly had a major barrier to leaving their home AND were willing to do whatever it took to preserve whatever comforts they could.

As we discussed in class, when people feel isolated, unprepared or scared, they often look for the simplest solution independent of any additional context.

As we are hopefully turning the corner on the pandemic, do these services have have the same outlook? Will Uber shift away from repurposing their “workforce” (absolutely not employees) back to chauffeuring?

To your comment Philip, their services are almost certainly “sustainable” from a profit standpoint. From an ethical perspective, there is a fair amount of competition in this space as well as the ability (i.e. Dominos) to make your own solution. Why is it that so many restaurants “willingly” signed up for these platforms?

Unfortunately, tech companies “providing” a platform to help local businesses scale, specifically small restaurants, have a history of taking advantage of their network effects to extract as much as they can from the relationship.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily-replacing-restaurants-phone-numbers-so-grubhub-can-take-a-cut

Going back to our lecture, these services certainly allow us to order more often. They also can accelerate and simplify the process. Both seem like benefits for their customers (i.e. you). For argument’s sake, if they “require” these margins to remain competitive, is the value to their customers more important than the cost to their “partners”? Should these platforms change or should restaurants increase their prices to better reflect the cost required to be on these platforms (if they are in fact necessary for restaurants to succeed)?

This is a great recent example of mobile disruption. On the flip side of this problem, I , like many others have found out about new restaurants through these apps and have continued to support them in person (like you also mentioned). While the apps are hiking up prices, I also saw a boom in the number of instacart (where does this fall?) employees at the grocery during the pandemic and I’m sure the number of delivery app workers increased as well. While I completely understand your frustration with these apps, I also think they gave a lot of people a chance to work during those times who may not have had the opportunity to otherwise – and through tipping I’m sure they were able to do pretty well.

Great post Kathy. I loved these food delivery apps as well until I saw how much they affected my bank account. I agree with Erin where I thought I was helpful these smaller restaurants by buying their food. Then, like you said, I saw how little they pay the restaurants and I felt guilty. But, if I live far from them, how else would I support these places?

In relation to your question, I unironically hate social media. Yes, it is helping connect people. But, it’s separating them too. I can’t stand it when people constantly look at their phones when we’re having a conversation. I feel like we can’t have real conversations because they want to know what’s happening on social media.

Great topic. The problem I see with a lot of these mom and pop shops and private owned restaurants is they simply don’t have the economics of scale to afford these middlemen to skim large percentages of the profit. The business owner will have to make an informed decision based on math and data. If you have 30% or lower margins on each food sale, then you’re not going to grow your business based on profit since most commissions on these apps are 30% or higher. The other factor you have to consider is how much awareness can your restaurant garner by using the app and will it transfer to leads to get people to visit your restaurant physically.

Wow, thanks for sharing this Kathy! I always questioned why there were such high fees, but at the end of the day still had to pay them. It’s like agreeing to terms and conditions. You question what you’re agreeing to, but sign anyway because you want to use the application. This is the important backend work that more people need to know about. Many consumers probably had the same mindset as you in trying to help their favorite local business during the pandemic, but had no idea most of the profits didn’t support the business. Many consumers also have the “digital first” mindset where they think every business needs to adapt to these digital times. They disregard the fact that if the company doesn’t have enough resources, revenue, knowledge, bandwidth to create their own app it will just hurt their business. This is the case for most small businesses.