Tag Archives: Perception

Brand Promise, Brand Strategy, Perception, Portfolio, Positioning

The End of Facebook

Meta is running the last leg of its once so-popular social media platform Facebook: Facebook is on its way out.

In 2013 the Facebook CFO already warned of upcoming problems in the Q3 2013 earnings call “We did see a decrease in daily users partly among younger teens. … This is of questionable significance.”

In 2015 I concluded that Facebook, the brand leader of the extensive category social network, will eventually face issues with focused brands taking small bites out of the big pie and capturing users from the leader (link).

The combination of brand decline with the youth (= looking for another brand than Facebook) and new brands coming in (Snapchat, Insta, TikTok, and many more) eventually will lead to the end of Facebook. Facebook is not attracting the youth and grows along with the old.

In 2018 while teaching second-year students, I learned that the Facebook issues were more significant than I had thought: a few of the100 students used Facebook very specifically to browse posts. They did not post anything themselves.

Recently I decided to recheck the Facebook status with a large group of students. The trend has only gotten worse: Facebook is hardly in use with the group <25 years – not even to browse posts.

The generalist category “social network” is disappearing; with it, the brand Facebook will eventually disappear.

The company’s rebranding from Facebook to Meta was a vital move. Under Meta, each product brand can flourish without a link to the fading Facebook brand.  

General

Mozy… do you really think I change my bi-yearly subscription from 83USD to 1343USD? This offer I will refuse!

Mozy was in many ways an example of brand building. First there is a reliable service that simply works. Second there is plenty of good PR (Mossberg, trends) and word of mouth. Then when the backup category got established the TV spots came to defend the position of the brand.

I got referred to Mozy by a good friend of mine and yes … I have been referring Mozy to many friends as well! Like I said, the service simply works!

This morning however Mozy blew it big time: they changed their proposition from “unlimited backup with yearly subscription fee” to “pay for storage, pay per gigabyte”… Not smart! Once consumers perceive you as free or unlimited (even with a subscription fee) you cannot change the business model unless you are willing to start from zero in brand and relationship building.

For me it is over and out with Mozy and it seems with many others as well, just see the discussions and on Twitter. Lots of companies also participate in the discussion to grab switchers!

As I do backup everything (my music, photos, raw photos, ….) I use a bit of space. With the current plan I can do that for 83USD/2years, the new plan will set me back to 1343USD/2years (data growth not included).

Not.