The art of the rebrand can be quite simple…
Staples Center to Crypto.com Arena
The rebrand became official on Christmas Day 2021. The arena was called “Staples Center” since the arena first opened in 1999, and Staples paid $120 million for twenty years of naming rights. Halfway through the deal, another deal was struck where Staples held onto the rights for perpetuity.
Sports and entertainment company AEG bought out the rights in early 2019. Crypto.com is now paying $700 million for twenty years of naming rights.
Now Crypto.com’s chief marketing officer mentioned brand recognition as a reason for the deal. But he also talked about the legitimacy of the crypto industry as a whole.
A big part of the strategy is, ‘How do we communicate the fact the industry is not going anywhere and we’re not going anywhere.’ The best expression of that is something like this, putting your name on a building.
Steven Kalifowitz, chief marketing officer of Crypto.com
Facebook to Meta
Similar to what Google did with Alphabet, Facebook is now one of many apps under the wider umbrella of Meta. So the move to rebrand has a precedent, and it makes sense since Facebook is much more than a single platform. Among others, there are WhatsApp (messaging) and Oculus (video hardware, products renamed to Meta as well), and they dabbled in a crypto wallet at one point.
Many people have pointed out Facebook’s reputation problem as a driving factor for the name change as well. At the time of the change, Facebook was facing more scrutiny than ever. Public opinion and legislators were pointing out the rampant misinformation on the platform. Political disinformation was highlighted as a particularly serious issue that could sway election results.
I do want to point out the difference between misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation is getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is more malicious, where false information is deliberately spread to mislead others.
SKT Telecom T1 to T1
SKT Telecom T1 is one of the most recognizable names in professional esports. They’ve maintained their success in League of Legends over the years (and Starcraft in the early days) but announced their rebranding in 2019.
Quick note: It’s not uncommon for esports teams to change their names when their main sponsor changes.
T1’s situation was a little bit different. They dropped “SKT Telecom” because SKT Telecom and Comcast formed a joint esports venture called T1 Entertainment and Sports. The company now houses T1’s professional esports teams in League as well as other games such as Valorant.
Here’s a random post you can check out: 2-Minute Explainer on Oil Price Factors, Interest Rate Predictions.