🔬The no-branding rebranding: views on 'X'

Elon Musk is not exactly winning, but here's what could be behind his actions

ago 02, 2023

"A successful rebranding is not just about changing a name; it's about reshaping a company's culture and identity." - Richard Branson

On July 23, Elon Musk announced that Twitter would not be named Twitter anymore. Instead, it would be called… X.

🐦 The blue bird logo - one of the most iconic and well recognized brand symbols of our time - was announced to be dropped as well, being replaced by the letter X which is reportedly a unicode character.

Several articles reported how Twitter lost billions in brand equity on this day, just by losing such unique features. Being honest, I have no idea what Elon Musk actually wants. But I do know one thing or two about branding, so I am going to talk about some rebranding principles that he is NOT following, and what he might be intending with this.

🫀 Rebranding principles that Elon Musk is not following

1. Rebranding starts internally 🧑‍🤝‍🧑

People who work at companies that went through a rebranding process know this: every rebranding process starts internally.

In other words, you cannot repurpose how a brand shows itself to the outside without first onboarding your employees in the change, as they are the ones who will be continuously building and representing it on a daily basis.

So far, the internal changes implemented in Twitter/X seem to be restricted to the names of the conference rooms, that were renamed to words with X in them, including “eXposure,” “eXult” and “s3Xy,”.

According to

Casey Newton

, several employees are still receiving stock grants at the premium that Musk paid a year ago when he purchased Twitter. Therefore, the consequences of not having employees aligned in the rebranding could soon be announced, as such grants start to expire.

2. Branding requires cohesion and consistency 🎨

Brands distinguish themselves through a set of assets that includes design, logos, personas, voice, colors and fonts.

Seems like obvious work, but when a rebrand is publicly announced, employees work tirelessly on the weeks before to ensure that all of those brand assets will be consistent with the new appearance throughout the company’s websites, apps, stores and products.

In the case of Twitter/X this is how the company presented itself on the rebrand day:

3. Brand building takes time and, most importantly, trust ⌚

Rebranding is a process that takes time, often requiring external consultants, designers and focus groups. Does not look like any of this happened in the case of Twitter/X.

Instead, looks like things happened pretty fast, without even the regulatory approval for the new name or logo, for which Twitter may even be sued.

X logo being installed in the company’s HQ in San Francisco on July 28, 2023. Source: AP News

🧨 The no-branding rebranding: what could be behind Elon Musk’s actions

Theory 1: Bold product ambitions require a bold rebranding 💣

The official statement from Twitter/X’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, is that the company is undergoing a complete product turnaround, aiming to become a Superapp in the models of what WeChat does in China: an app where users have all of bank their data stored, chat with their friends, make purchases, and so on.

I do not know whether consumers actually want this kind of product or even trust Elon Musk for this.

What do I know is that such a bold ambition requires a bold rebranding and even a new set of employees.

Casey Newton

called Twitter’s rebranding an act of vandalism but maybe this is what Elon Musk intended precisely.

🧐 The question here is: if Musk aims to transform Twitter into something so radically different, then why spend $44B on it? Zuckerberg certainly created Threads for less than that…

Theory 2: Getting traction 📈

⌛ It’s been almost a year since Elon Musk purchased Twitter. And, ever since, he has not exactly been winning.

He tried many ideas to revamp the company: subscriptions (which has been putting the company on the edge of a financial turmoil), bringing back people who had been banned and implementing longer videos.

According to Hard Fork, nothing really has moved the needle for Twitter and he even ended up creating space for new competitors, such as Threads, to join the space (I wrote about this subject here).

Therefore, the whole new Superapp thing would be a way to erase all of these mistakes that Musk has been doing on Twitter. 🧐

Does not inspire confidence, even though Musk was the original creator of another super fintech app: Paypal (previously named x.com).

Theory 3: Other companies also rebranded following a bold vision 🧨

Even Musk’s biggest rival, Zuckerberg, changed his company name in the face of bold personal beliefs.

On October 2021, Facebook’s name was changed to Meta, following Zuckerberg’s strong vision for the Metaverse thesis. The vision, so far, has not materialized, though the new name still stands and eventually people got used to it. 🤷🏽‍♀️

The differences here are: (1) Meta is the name of the holding company that owns Facebook (whose name is still intact) and other apps, and (2) Twitter had an almost larger-than-life brand equity: like Google, it was practically a verb (‘‘he tweeted’’).

Again, bold ambitions…