Roughly 23 years ago, an online bank called Confinity merged with a rival known as X.com. That merged company changed its name to PayPal. Elon Musk was among the partners in that venture. He had wanted to keep the name X. Other executives quashed the idea. This past weekend, Musk, owner of Twitter, announced the name of the social media platform along with its familiar bird logo have been replaced by (drum roll) an “X”.
The world’s wealthiest individual is obsessed with the letter “X”. Perhaps it’s because, in algebra, “X” is used to mean a value that’s not yet known. Whatever the case, Musk founded SpaceX, bought his way into Tesla, and named the top-of-the-line vehicle, the “Model X”, and named his son with singer Grimes, “X Æ A-Xii,” or just “X”.
Twitter debuted in 2006 and took its name from the sound of birds chirping. The company bought a stock image from a British designer for less than $20 to use for a logo. Now the entire flock of Twitter and blue bird related tools will vanish. People will no longer send a tweet, but an “X”.
Musk has teased the Twitter rebrand for months. Linda Yaccarino, the CEO posted that “X” will be an “everything app,” combining social media, instant messaging and payment services. In the meantime, marketing experts are describing the situation as a mishmash of branding.
There’s only one reason for a company to change its name, and that’s whatever reason the company decides. It’s often due to a negative perception in the marketplace. Altria was created out of Philip Morris because the company wanted to promote its entire portfolio and distance itself from its most deadly product, tobacco.
Sometimes a name can be confining. We worked for Riverside County’s Credit Union. It was a successful institution, but sometimes suffered from the mistaken perception that one had to work for the county to belong. That name also made it more difficult to expand into other counties. In 2004, our agency implemented their new name and branding elements. Today, they are Altura Credit Union. That was a big change for the better.
Will the Twitter rebrand make it better? That’s nearly impossible to predict. The only true test is the marketplace. What we can safely say is that Musk had to do something. He spent $44 billion to purchase the platform, $13 billion of it was borrowed. According to Fortune, the platform has lost about two-thirds of its value since Musk bought it, and its ad revenue is down about 50 percent. Threads, the Meta challenger to Twitter (and now X), has topped 100 million users. The numbers don’t paint a rosy picture. However, in this case, the man in control of the canvas has more than enough money to brush the numbers aside.
Madison Avenue used to use “Brand X” as the brand that failed in comparison to the same type of product being promoted. This time around, Brand X is eponymous. Only time will tell if the rebranding reinvigorates the platform.