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Designing the Facebook Company Brand

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Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#181

Post by CharlesColeman »

bredren wrote: post #101
lostgame wrote: post #40

Would’ve been better, IMHO; to pull an Alphabet and rename the company. This reminds me a little of the ‘Apple TV’ vs. ‘Apple TV’ article running around recently. If Facebook wants to differentiate their company from their service, a rename makes sense and also wouldn’t hurt their reputation when they create new products.

I was thinking similarly. Not that it needed to rename it but that it was an obvious option available. I think the choice to keep the main company as "Facebook" could be seen as hubris or overconfidence in the lasting trust in the name. There's no question the company itself has been under attack for privacy, impact on social behavior, its profit and negligence in running ads that undermined integrity of the 2016 US…

> So creating a new super company name, like Alphabet, which sounds a lot like Altria (phillip morris) to me, that isn't directly tied to the other companies would have been a sensible direction.

Kinda off-topic, but I feel like such corporate renamings should be illegal, or at least heavily scrutinized and subject to regulatory approval. Brands are socially useful to help track both positive and negative perceptions. Personal name changes often cannot be performed to "to avoid the consequences of a criminal conviction" [1], and I don't think the a company should be able to use them to avoid the reputational consequences of their actions.

[1] for instance: https://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2017/title-13/change-o...

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#182

Post by philwelch »

vkou wrote: post #159
filoleg wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The US sees anti-trust as necessary when consumers are negatively impacted. The EU sees anti-trust as necessary when producers are negatively impacted. This statement is interesting, considering what it implies about the purpose of existence of producers for each respective side. With this stance, US is more like "producers exist to satisfy needs of customers", while EU is "producers exist just to compete with each…

The EU, roughly, sees producers as a vehicle that exists to create jobs, and thus create prosperity for their employees. Once basic life needs are met, optimizing for customers tends to only good for someone who is living off their savings/welfare/etc. Optimizing for employees is good if you, like the majority of the people on Earth, have to work for a living, or are supported by someone who has to work for a living.

Even in America, often producers wield more political power than consumers. Farm policies are often dictated by the interests of farmers more than the interests of people who eat food. Tariffs have traditionally been a mechanism to protect domestic producers at the expense of domestic consumers. Immigration provides economic benefits but some of these come at the expense of individual workers who face more competition. Even defense policy is affected: decisions are largely driven by the goal of creating or protecting jobs in particular states and districts rather than by the actual needs of the military.

Everybody eats food, pays taxes, pays tariffs, and benefits from the protection of the military, but 300 million people who pay marginally fewer taxes and tariffs, eat marginally cheaper food, and enjoy the defense of a marginally more effective and efficient military are often "outvoted" by geographic concentrations of tens of thousands of people who have substantial vested interests.

Given this inherent bias in democracy, I think it makes sense for policy to at least try to favor the consumer over the producer, just because producers do a good job taking care of themselves already.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#183

Post by philwelch »

MiroF wrote: post #66
baby wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing something similar happening in China (CEOs of companies that get large are stepping down and being replaced by party members), I wonder if the US model is similarly threatened by large companies. If you think about it, corruption is legal in the US through lobbies, and the larger and more powerful a company is, the easier it is for the company to influence policies and how the country is being run.

Pretty much every major republican thinker (and by republican I mean in the tradition of republicanism, not the political party) has discussed the problem that these concentrations of wealth/power have for stable societies.

Most historical republics were defined and explicitly ruled by concentrations of wealth and power--Rome, Venice, Florence, Genoa, the Hanseatic League.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#184

Post by orhmeh09 »

ProbablyRyaan wrote: post #84
pc86 wrote: post #57

> and the subtle softening of corners and diagonals adds a sense of optimism. [0] Oh come on. Has anyone ever looked at rounded corners in a font and thought "wow, that sure is optimistic!" I'm all about custom design and thoughtful branding but let's not get ridiculous about it. [0] https://facebook.design/companybrand

Yeah, it's flowery-design talk but I'd argue these nuances go a long way subconsciously.

I’m unsure if you’re serious, but I’d be interested to hear an argument for the subconscious nuances going a long way.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#185

Post by qubex »

x220 wrote: post #127
unethical_ban wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've never had communications platforms so centralized, nor had comms companies with so much editorial control over peoples' exposure to information.

The United States Postal Service? Although it's illegal for them to open mail without a specific warrant.

The USPS is my go-to example of why “Net Neutrality” is a requirement for communication.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#186

Post by baroffoos »

jacoblsievers wrote: post #75
dougweltman wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another likely explanation: Instagram now represents a very significant amount of the company's revenue and most of its future value. The new logo is designed to capture that, rather than reinforcing the association with its legacy business.

Agreed. This is clearly a pivot to a younger user base.

The facebook brand has such negative feelings associated with it but the new logo is really refreshing.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#187

Post by qubex »

robbrown451 wrote: post #139
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the government itching to break up tech companies? I feel like it's a bad idea for them to get involved at all.

Because many voters think that they would be better off if the government enforced antitrust law more strongly in this area. Most agree it was effective when the government broke up Standard Oil, and when they broke up AT&T, among others. Microsoft was not broken up (although it got really close), but they sure got a slap, partly from the EU. And they changed their behavior, rather dramatically, for the better in the…

The reason why the EU “slapped” Microsoft is instructive though: in a nutshell, the argument was as follows: it is so big that it can crowd out other smaller competitors because it can offer products for almost free (because their marginal cost is basically zero) whereas starting up and/or sustaining a small competitor (perhaps with a subset of functionality, for a lower TCO) is more expensive. Since producers are (as remarked elsewhere) seen as “vehicles for job creation”, this is a net negative.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#188

Post by csteubs »

philwelch wrote: post #177
jawns wrote: post #7

Although a post about updated branding may seem benign, this is, I believe, a response to critics who believe the company should be broken up. For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/opinion/facebook-antitrus... https://www.wired.com/story/tim-wu-explains-why-facebook-bro... https://www.cnet.com/news/can-facebook-be-broken-up-what-you... Facebook is hoping that by differentiating its company brand from its fl…

The traditional method of differentiating the parent company from its eponymous application would be to rebrand the company as "Facebook Group". For example: "Expedia Group", "Match Group", "Zillow Group".

I could see Facebook taking the approach Google did with Alphabet, but one can only guess what that would look like.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#189

Post by qubex »

petepete wrote: post #169
voldacar wrote: post #150

> The brand comes to life in the context of people, cultures, communities and relationships. What does this even mean? What kind of human could even write such a sentence?

Still got nothing on Pepsi https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...

Dr Graeber, we have a “bullshit jobs” winner.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#190

Post by skummetmaelk »

paxys wrote: post #145
oflannabhra wrote: post #107

I know it is easy to be cynical on these types of "announcements", but I am having a really, really hard time understanding how curved strokes (or any branding decision) can result in empathy or "open space for peoples stories". Empathy is a human characteristic. To think that a word mark can have (or even create ) it is patently ridiculous. In fact, I'd say it cheapens the meaning of the word to the point where true…

It isn't ridiculous at all. Human feelings are very easily influenced by sights and sounds and other external stimuli. Every company out there is fine tuning their brand, advertising, logo, colors etc. to trigger specific emotional responses from you.

s/influenced/manipulated

The difference is important. Influencing does not necessarily imply malice and exploitation. Manipulation does.

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