Text: Reliable A star
（1）
Facebook's change of name to "Meta" caused a complaint that "I don't even want my face." However, in terms of advertising effect, Facebook is not a loss, although he has no users in China, but there are certainly retail investors in the stock market. Facebook's stock trading name also jumped after changing its name to a concept related to the "metacosm.".
There is a saying that Facebook's name change is similar to Goolge's renaming of "Alphabet", essentially using a larger group new entity name to make a larger "matryoshka doll", rather than changing the product name. Similar situations are actually more common in Internet companies, so let's talk about this topic today.
（2）
How many cases of name change?
The first is that the company's business development requires a new group name, which is a new and larger "matryoshka doll" mentioned above.
This kind of name change is today's headline company in 2018 changed its name to "ByteDance", today's headlines as a product name and vibrato, watermelon video, understand the car emperor and other products juxtaposed, before the name of byteDance, people are often easy to vibrato, watermelon video, pippi shrimp and many other products are called "today's headlines", now this habit of the media has basically changed.
It is said that the name of the parent company of byteDance is an English name "bytedance" taken by Zhang Yiming according to the characteristics of programmers in the place of entrepreneurship, and then translated from the English name; so that byteDance's English initial is "B", which is a member of the new "BAT".
The so-called "name is right, then the words are smooth". The advantage of changing the name is that it can widely expand the diversified route, sort out the product logic line and personnel position in the system, if you use the name of today's headlines, it is indeed inconvenient for the team to form a team such as Vibrato, Huge Engine, Feishu, and Multi-Flash to get rid of the entanglement of the stock business. Another advantage is that it can set up many subsidiaries to invest, thereby expanding the company's diversified business, such as ByteDance's education sector is a vigorous education company; ByteDance's game business is mainly in Beijing Youyi Technology Company.
From this point of view, the name change itself is also an inevitable fact that the original product name can no longer cover the company's diversified business. Similar to the renaming due to business development needs, Guazi used cars were upgraded to "Chehaoduo Group" and so on.
The second reason for the name change is the adjustment of the company's strategic direction or business priorities.
A well-known example is that Alipay's parent company, Ant Financial, was renamed Ant Technology in 2020 or further abbreviated as Ant Group. Although it is a change in the industry attributes of financial services to technology, it actually represents the transformation of Alipay itself from a basic business of financial services to a digital service platform. In the same period, the Alipay logo also changed from light blue to dark blue, I don't know if it is to express the meaning of shallow sea to deep sea.
The third reason for the name change is that the merger between the first and second places in the market to form a new company, must use a new company name to contain two products, such as the name of the new company after the merger of Yunman and the Truck Gang is "ManBang".
I heard that the female employees of "Yunmanman" were pregnant one by one, and some people joked that they were touched by the joy of the company's name, and after Zhang Hui, CEO of Yunman, became the chairman and CEO of Manbang Group, the exposure rate of the name Yunman was much lower, and the main one was Full Gang.
The fourth reason for the name change is for the needs of future listing; for example, Love Recycling Company changed its name to "All Things New Life", so that the listing name does not use one of the company's main business product names (because love recycling and JD.com's paipai business are merged, the popularity of Paipai is also very high, and the update will help increase the valuation).
The fifth reason may be to adapt to regulatory needs, such as Momo"'s "momo" renamed "Hello" and the company's Chinese name "Zhiwen Group".
Of course, it is not excluded that the boss likes or will, and simply wants to change a name; or the original company name itself needs a large naming fee and has to be changed. For example, a group that Ah Xing had previously contacted and learned was a school-run enterprise, because it had to pay 10 million yuan to a top university every year, and then all the enterprises collectively changed their names.
In short, some enterprises change their names to welcome the new atmosphere, and some have difficult scriptures to read.
（3）
Generally, the name is used to shouting and shouting, if it is not because it must be moved, those who can not move will not move.
Because each name, especially the well-known product name or company name, its brand value itself is intangible, representing the reputation and efforts of all the teams in the past, and changing to a new name requires preparation to bear a certain risk. Will it be renamed? Is the identity strong? and so on.
Even some company names represent the company's fortunes, which is a metaphysics, and changing the name actually involves the whole body.
For example, the brand department needs to verify the title and external introduction of each person in the future manuscript; the company's logo must be replaced; the corresponding trademark needs to be registered; the industrial and commercial change of the company's name needs to be done; the materials of the marketing personnel need to be replaced; the product design icon needs to be replaced, and so on. To put it crudely, this amount of work is equivalent to a process of digging and filling pits.
And even if some names are changed, in fact, the entire team, partners, and users have a long adaptation time, which is similar to the "transformation" of the enterprise life.
Compared with the company's name change, combined with the company's strategic brand upgrade and the organizational design of the "matryoshka doll" parent company on the basis of the original product, it has become a relatively cost-effective choice.
To summarize the reference principles for the renaming of Internet companies: First, the Occam razor principle "If it is not necessary, do not add entities"; Second, it is really necessary to change the name, you can use the company to register the name, let the product name be retained, and the name of the group company as the brand name, each undertaking different functions; The third is to change the new name in advance to do a good job of industrial and commercial filing and registration, and to do exclusive trademark intellectual property application and confirmation before it can be adopted.
above.
▼About the Author
Reliable A Xing (Li Xing), public account: Reliable A Xing, author of the book "Media Strategy"