Antonio Lucio is all set to take charge as CMO of Facebook from September

Facebook is experiencing its biggest branding crisis and it just hired Antonio Lucio, former CMO of Visa and Pepsi to propel the company’s cross promote features and external image. Antonio recently made an announcement that he would be stepping down from his role as HP’s CMO to take up a similar post at Facebook. Antonio Lucio will be starting from September 4^th and he will be replacing Gary Briggs, who was Facebook’s CMO for five years to advise companies and work with democrats. Lucio’s Hispanic background will bring in much-needed diversity to the company’s management. Lucio will be reporting to CFO Chris Cox and also he is also expected to be a part of Sheryl Sandberg’s leadership team.

Facebook gave a confirmation that Lucio will work across various apps of the company, including WhatsApp and Instagram, which doesn’t have a named CMO. Before joining HP, Lucio served as chief marketing and communication officer for seven years and also he had been ina marketing team of PepsiCo for eight years. The recent ad campaign of Facebook seeks apology and touts that the company understands the responsibility of maintaining the safety of user data.

Lucio will be incharge of product marketing. There are a lot of significant features packed in the Facebook product that requires attention, so Lucio will make the decision on how and what to highlight. There are unanswered questions remaining like will he think holistically to support the inevitable salvaging of cross-promote company by fresher-faced acquisition, or will he place the big blue in the first position.