Rebranding is always a risk, but Musk’s X move has blowtorched Twitter

Elon Musk. Source: AAP.

Maybe Elon Musk is writing a script for a movie called ‘How To Make $44 Billion Disappear’. And in the latest scene, the bad guy takes a blow torch to a well-known and somewhat beloved name and logo. He’s giving his customers the bird in the form of an X.

The new mark Musk unveiled this week wouldn’t look out of place on a poster for a new dystopian trilogy about social media. I struggle to imagine anything more divergent from the Twitter logo. 

It’s impossible to guess his end-game. His vision appears to align more with people who buy a well-loved older home. And then raze it to build a glass and concrete box devoid of heritage, charm or character.

Since Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, he’s acted more like a wrecking ball than a responsible steward, decimating staff ranks and gutting protection against user misinformation and bad behaviour. 

Advertisers fled alongside long-time users, resulting in falling revenue and a staggering drop in valuation.

Ditching a logo the company previously described as its ‘most recognisable asset’ might also be the last straw for many lifers who have continued to use the platform as it slowly disintegrates around them.

But don’t believe the nonsense about a rebrand. Call it wilful destruction. A brand is an ongoing store of value created by everything an organisation does, which includes names and logos. They’re how people pick you out of a lineup and, over time, stand for your actions. Which underlines the inherent risk of changing them and why it usually changes nothing.

Since he took control, Musk’s actions and decisions have steadily eroded the value stored in Twitter’s brand. He has bankrupted people’s confidence in the platform and is now removing the last vestiges of affinity they may hold.

In his book How the Mighty Fall, bestselling author Jim Collins identified five stages of failure: hubris born of success, the undisciplined pursuit of more, denial of peril, and grasping for salvation before eventual capitulation to irrelevance and death.

It sounds like a perfect characterisation of Musk since he bought the company.

Until marketers co-opted X, it was often a placeholder for later, or an indicator that something no longer existed. And both feel plausible. The shift to X seems like Musk grasping for something, and Twitter’s death knell feels more likely with every decision he makes.

Michel Hogan is an independent brand counsel. 

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