A dreadful X: let's talk about rebranding of Twitter

In several ways, Twitter's change to X (can we call it rebranding?) has left more questions than answers. At Gerundio, we've also been thinking about it and have a few things to say about this decision.

For Eduardo Gutiérrez Villarreal

A couple of tweets were all it took for Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, to announce the renaming of this social network, which was finalized – at least in terms of its name and logo – on July 23rd.

In these tweets, Musk was talking about a swift goodbye to the Twitter brand and all your birds, and he asked his followers for logo proposals with the name «X.».

Unexpectedly, the next day Twitter's iconic blue bird had been replaced by what Chabelo would have called «a hideous X.». 

With or without intent, Elon Musk and his team decided to ignore important details when making a rebranding and they made a controversial and potentially wrong decision. Let's see...

Context matters

Let's start by remembering that this is neither the first nor the most controversial decision by Elon Musk at the helm of Twitter.

Since acquiring the company for $44 billion, Musk laid off more than half of its workers; reincorporates banned users, like former US President Donald Trump; decided Remove the badge from verified accounts to put it up for sale; y established some rules based on ultraconservative stances, among other things.

This not only generated discontent among users and sponsors, but it also opened the door to the social media monopolist: Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta and its new social network, Threads. 

With the arrival of a new competitor of that caliber, the decision to rebrand It is, at least, risky. And, by the way, in the face of the new Social network, who wants to be the ex?

When I woke up, the little bird was no longer there

The problem isn't just that they wanted to carry out a rebranding In a complicated context, the strongest weapon Twitter had to face its new competitor was strong positioning and a well-built brand.

Twitter had done things so well that we had even organically adopted verbs and concepts from this social network. Meanwhile, there are dozens of brands out there trying to force words into our vocabulary (cough, cough, «wrap»), Twitter managed to do it naturally.

Even the Royal Spanish Academy, with all its fears and prejudices, decided to adopt concepts like "tweet," "to tweet," "tweeting," and "tweeter", Castilianizing them and incorporating them into his dictionary.

More than just a famous blue bird and a series of verbs and concepts, it's an entire strong brand that – at least until now – seems to be being thrown away.

Okay, but does that mean Twitter couldn't change?

Not at all, but doing so has its trick.

One rebranding these dimensions require a more exhaustive analysis of the context and Timing, a strategic direction that leads to logical and coherent decisions, and an identity system that accompanies the logo, among many other things.

Twitter's brand was much more than just a little blue bird, with details as fine as the fact that in its iconography the startup symbol home Whether it was a birdhouse, a verified account badge being a cloud, or the button to compose a tweet being a blue feather, these were elements that helped build the brand as a whole.

The question is, then, what elements will accompany the X when Musk is done with it all the birds?

The future of X

Given the spontaneous nature of change and the way Musk and his team make decisions regarding this social network, it's difficult to know if the little bird will return next month, if the X will be replaced by something new, or if this platform will simply disappear.

While Richard Michie, CEO of The Marketing Optimist, assures that the rebranding de Twitter a X is «an absolute marketing suicide,» Daniel Ives, director at Wedbush Services, believes that the change to X is only the first step of a transformation that will lead to the creation of a new superapp.

The only thing we can be sure of is that an interesting competition is coming around the platforms of microblogging with the arrival of Threads and with the new TikTok trend that will allow its users to make text posts.

Without a strong and consistent brand, competing will become increasingly difficult, and Twitter's success risks becoming a dreadful X.