Season 2 Ep #13: Unfriending Your Brand
Why would a company, from the largest to the smallest, spend years building a reputation using its trademarked name and logo, and then suddenly decide to make a complete change? This week on IP Goes Pop! we explore some famous “rebrands,” the ones that worked, the ones that may not have worked. The podcast also looks at what we can learn from Facebook’s rebrand to “Meta” (announced October 2021) and what makes it so unique.
Join Volpe Koenig Shareholders and IP Goes Pop! co-hosts, Michael Snyder and Joseph Gushue, along with fellow Volpe Koenig shareholder John O’Malley, as they explore famous rebrands and the intellectual property (IP) implications that can come with them. Our panel discusses common motives that may lead a company to undergo a rebrand and the key pieces of IP that can determine how strong and successful a company’s rebrand becomes.
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Timestamps:
02:46 Famous Rebrands - Trademark Names
- Coke to New Coke
- Crystal Clear Pepsi
- Radio Shack to “The Shack”
- Pizza Hut to “The Hut”
- Kentucky Fried Chicken to “KFC”
- Dunkin Donuts to “Dunkin”
- Lucky Goldstar to “LG Electronics”
- Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web to “Yahoo!”
- BackRub to “Google”
12:26 Famous Rebrands - Trade Dress & Logos
- Pepsi’s redo of Tropicana Orange Juice
- Netflix’s “Qwickster” for streaming
- Yahoo’s logo evolution
- Google’s logo evolution
- Amazon’s logo evolution
- eBay’s evolution from AuctionWeb
18:07 Why do companies rebrand?
- Change of focus/expansion
- Trademark Issues/Avoiding Bad Publicity
21:00 Facebook rebrands to “Meta”
- William Gibson, CyberPunk Movement
- The Matrix (1999)
- Ready Player One (2018)
- Second Life
- World of Warcraft
- Trademark conflicts
35:24 Volpe Koenig Rebrand and Final Thoughts
Resources
Facebook Unfriends Its Own Brand with the Launch of Meta--What does Facebook’s Rebrand Teach Us?