Brand check "Twitter / X": The masterpiece of Elon MuX
Heinrich Paravicini from Mutabor takes a close look at brand relaunches and brand designs for Werbewoche.ch. This time: the change of the Twitter brand to X.
It's been tweeted out. With the master plan in mind to turn Twitter into the "Everything App" of the Western hemisphere along the lines of WeChat, Elon Musk has unceremoniously disposed of one of the world's best-known brands. Twitter is now called X. He bought Twitter a good year ago for 44 billion, about half of which - according to experts - was the value of the brand, its symbols and the word "twitter" that has become part of everyday language. At the time, the media outcry erupted like a tsunami across all channels in our communications industry, and it is still omnipresent. I deliberately waited for this tsunami to pass before writing my (preliminary) conclusion on the Twitter case - and it is a positive one.
Musk was right for two reasons
There are two reasons why Musk's move was exactly right: First, Twitter was limited in its business model and could not scale as an investor paying such a high price must expect. The name Twitter alone only describes a certain activity - namely "tweeting", but not payment services, eCommerce, travel and everything else that an "everything app" does. So here the brand was not optimal.
Elon Musk is the richest man in the world and anything but stupid - and here comes the second aspect: I don't know him personally, but I know people who have worked with him. That's how I know he hates marketing. That's why the crowbar-like way of this rebranding is not only very typical of Musk - it's simply brilliant. While other brands spend an insane amount of money on strategies, rebranding programs and campaigns and millions on media to change their brand, he just pays... nothing.
And yet, in one fell swoop, the whole world knows it. No matter how unique this X logo may be, whether it can be protected or what twitter is now called - in just a few hours, this X has burned itself into everyone's brain - without a cent of paid media. Musk has used his persona and the power of the platform for which he paid so much money. And lo and behold, his investment was the right one. Now he can move on to the next chapter. And again, everyone will be waiting in suspense to see what his next move will be. We'll find out on X.
* Heinrich Paravicini is founder and creative director of Mutabor.
