Brand trust in Facebook actually fell after it changed its name to Meta

While on one optimistic hand, it marks a significant change and evolution of the company’s goals and trajectory, and a glimpse into its desired future. On the other, more cynical hand, it’s also a blatant attempt to disassociate from all the bad press surrounding the Facebook name. However, a new report from the Harris Brand Platform, a syndicated brand tracker from The Harris Poll that captures the emotional attributes that consumers associate with specific brands, says brand trust among those familiar with the company actually fell after the rebrand.

According to the Harris Brand Platform, Facebook’s trustworthy score began to fall from 16% after The Wall Street Journal‘s “Facebook Files” series on various revelations—including how the company knew Instagram was “toxic” for teens—and hit a low of 5.8% during the week of the Congressional hearings and testimony of whistleblower Frances Haugen in the first week of October. That marked its lowest score since the start of the pandemic. There was a brief bounce back up to 11%, but then as Facebook announced its rebrand to Meta, its trustworthy score has once again dipped to 6.2%.

Last week Meta launched a new brand campaign, aiming to start with a clean slate on its way to the metaverse.