Brand experts on Twitter renaming: “Brand burned”

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Out for the bird: Twitter is now called 𝕏. Already in most places. While the third-to-last letter of the alphabet graces most of the Twitter website, Vogel Larry still shines in apps. The facade of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco (USA) is only halfway through the rebranding process: due to a lack of permissions, the police stopped removing the old logo. Currently, only the letters “er” are embroidered on one side of the façade.

So why are Elon Musk (52) and CEO Linda Yaccarino (59) doing this to the social network? For reputation management expert Bernhard Bauhofer (61), the situation is clear. “His brand is burned,” he says. “Musk also realized that a lot of negativity was added to it.”

Logical progression to superplatform

Twitter has plummeted since the South African tech billionaire took over $44 billion: the company’s value has dropped by two-thirds, its workforce is unmotivated, and many users are jumping in due to the new owner’s behavior.

“Twitter’s soul was lost because of Musk’s omnipotence fantasies,” Bauhofer says. Renaming it to X is logical progression. “The platform is constantly moving away from a democratic, equal social network and towards an intensely profit-oriented media platform.” The appointment of CEO Yaccarino also expresses this process.

In any case, Musk does not hide his intentions. The South African billionaire announced on Tuesday night that his Twitter name is now too small for his grand plans. The company will now become “an app for everything”. It must be AI powered. And financial transactions must go through them too. The Chinese super app WeChat serves as a model.

“The new brand name shows that the new rules now apply,” says Johanna Gollnhofer, 36, Director of the University of St. Gallen’s Marketing Institute. “The renaming also brings a lot of interest to Musk again.” It clearly shows once again that the company belongs to the rest of Musk’s empire. Because there, too, the love for the letter is evident; such as the aerospace company SpaceX or Tesla models. X is also a seal that will work in most cultures.

However, with the renaming, will Musk be able to successfully leave behind the parched world he caused? “Rebuilding the brand will take time,” says Gollnhofer. “The chirping little bird will continue to anchor in the minds of users.”

Musk has given up on a high brand equity that has been managed for years with Twitter. “Often established brands keep their names and often just adapt the design. For example, as Apple has already done several times.» Google and Facebook platforms also kept their original names while renaming their parent companies Alphabet and Meta.

High risk of lawsuits

Expert Bauhofer is also skeptical about the chances of success: “Of course, the enormous purchase price makes it difficult to profit from the company,” he says. “The success of the new brand depends first and foremost on the marketing budget.” In addition, the text messaging service would now become a media platform as there are already many. Therefore, it is questionable whether loyal users can be poaching there.

It is also questionable how long the Musk company can adorn itself with the X brand: the letter is protected above all by rival Meta, in connection with social networks and software applications. Microsoft is also allowed to claim X for the marketing of the Xbox game console.

However, it doesn’t stop there: US trademark attorney Josh Gerben told Reuters he counts about 900 active US trademark registrations for the letter X in various industries. It’s only a matter of time before the first case arrives.

Source :Blick