Although the public has somewhat gotten used to the rash moves of the world’s richest man Elon Musk, his latest decision has nonetheless caused a sense of mild shock and disbelief. As is already known to everyone, Musk seized the keyboard one calm July night and announced to the world that he plans to get rid of the blue bird, Twitter’s symbol, and rename the platform to – X. Along with the recognizable bird, at the owner’s request, all words associated with the well-known name, such as tweet (tweet), tweeting (tweeting), or tweeps (Twitter employees) will also flutter away.
With this move, as reported by Time magazine, he provoked strong reactions from Twitter users who cannot come to terms with the fact that their favorite platform is changing its name and appearance, but also from investors, as it is estimated that the rebranding will erase at least four billion, and at most twenty billion dollars in brand value. Rebranding is, especially financially, considered by analysts to be a big mistake because it concerns one of the most recognizable and valuable brands in the world of digital networking. Not only has the blue bird adorned the websites of large and small businesses (along with the logos of Instagram and Facebook), but the Twitter lexicon has nestled into modern culture, and the terms have been regularly used by everyone communicating with a wider audience, from celebrities to politicians. With a new name, the platform will have to be built practically from scratch, both culturally and commercially.
Decline in value
The new CEO of X (formerly Twitter) Linda Yaccarino announced on social media that in life, as well as in business, it is rare to get a second chance to make a good impression. Okay, but are they sure this is the right path? Other tech companies have also tried to leave a good impression with new names. Google, for instance, rebranded to Alphabet to allow other businesses within the company to grow without being associated with the popular search engine. Facebook, on the other hand, changed its name to Meta Platforms to emphasize its commitment to developing the metaverse. However, despite having undergone (expensive) rebranding, they did not dare to change the names of their key products – Google and Facebook. Because that is what matters. The consulting company Brand Finance, writes Time, estimated that the Twitter brand is worth four billion dollars, Facebook’s value has risen to as much as 59 billion, and Instagram’s to 47.4 billion dollars. Vanderbilt University, however, claims that Twitter is significantly more valuable than the mentioned estimate, worth between fifteen and twenty billion dollars. Although there is obviously a huge difference in value depending on who the evaluator is, the platform’s value has significantly declined since the acquisition, by at least 32 percent. Given that the perception of Twitter has also changed, its key players – advertisers – have fled the platform. Concerned about Musk’s controversial public statements and changed rules of the game, they decided to pull their budgets from the platform, and as the owner himself reported, advertising revenues have literally halved since October when he took over the platform. As Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg stated for Time, the biggest challenge is that Twitter’s corporate brand is strongly linked to Elon Musk’s personal brand. In that sense, it doesn’t matter what the platform is called; its value has already been lost in the eyes of users and advertisers’ budgets. Consultant from Metaforce Allen Adamson went a step further in predicting Twitter’s (or X’s) future, stating that the decision to rebrand was made ‘out of ego’ and is not the result of strategic thinking because it is important for business. In his opinion, there is a high likelihood that the platform will go down in history and be remembered as one of the fastest business or brand failures.
Shaken trust
Even if we consider that thesis too dramatic, the fact is that rebranding, like a bolt from the blue, along with Musk’s previous ruthless business policy, has shaken the foundations of what is most valuable – user trust. Namely, Musk has decided to rely on financial support from users instead of advertisers. Given that the brand is now on shaky ground, it is questionable how many users will be willing to pay for services and, de facto, subsidize the platform’s existence. Users who are fans of Musk’s persona will open their wallets, but what about the rest? That rest, which is the majority, are lovers of the platform itself, which, at least as they have known it so far, has fluttered away along with the blue bird. By discarding the familiar identity, Musk has also discarded the values that the previous leadership built together with users since 2006, the year the platform was launched. The bird was created a few years later, in 2010, and then updated in 2012. Over more than fifteen years, Twitter has become a common place in modern networking culture and is now practically erased from the face of the earth, and Musk is evidently bold enough, not to say crazy, to coldly kill the brand at the moment when his fierce competitor Mark Zuckerberg launches his version of Twitter, the platform Threads. In less than a week, Threads recorded over one hundred million downloads, a success that exceeded the founders’ expectations. Users, writes the New York Times, are not disputing that Musk ‘killed’ the bird, but that he replaced it with X.
