• The social media platform Twitter rebranded to X, Elon Musk introduced final week. 
• The transfer was shortly condemned and mocked by customers of the positioning. 
• Some consultants mentioned it destroyed a beloved model. Others mentioned it is a much-needed new starting. 

It has been a whirlwind week for Twitter, or X — no matter you resolve to name it now. 

The social media platform’s signature sky-bound bluebird and iconic lingo (tweet, retweet) of 17 years aren’t any extra after proprietor Elon Musk determined to take his recently-acquired platform in a brand new path final Sunday. 

The choice to take action was a contentious one — some, like Jenn Takahashi, the founding father of San Francisco-based Takahashi PR and the vigorous character behind Better of Dying Twitter, described it as model suicide. Different branding consultants who spoke to Insider mentioned it might be a chance for Musk to wash his slate, and current a brand new, much less controversial, imaginative and prescient for the platform.

Musk declared the change to X final Sunday and mentioned it will definitely would develop into an “the whole lot app,” permitting customers to “conduct” their “total monetary world” on it.

In response, many customers swiftly objected to the information that the mainstay platform would now be known as X, accompanied by a darker picture and brand. 

“I did not find out about your rebrand concept and was in search of Twitter Verified, and scrolled proper previous your X brand, pondering it was a porn web site,” one consumer mentioned amongst a barrage of different feedback evaluating the brand new identify to an grownup leisure web site.

“I am not calling it X,” mentioned one other.

In a submit on the social media web site, a former Musk loyalist — who had as soon as slept on the ground of then-Twitter’s workplace earlier than she bought fired by the corporate — hinted at the concept Musk could be “destroying” his product or model.

And analysts and model companies who spoke to Bloomberg mentioned that the corporate may lose billions of {dollars} in model worth. 

Takahashi instructed Insider that there was no means she would have stayed at Twitter (she’ll by no means name it X, she mentioned) if she labored there.

“If I have been Twitter’s PR particular person and he tried to rebrand as ‘X,’ if he like insisted on it, I truly would have give up,” Takahashi mentioned of the corporate, which removed its communications division final November. “As a result of think about how dangerous it might be as a PR particular person to observe for that stuff. ‘Okay, let me simply see what ‘X’ has been doing within the information as we speak.'” 

For Takahashi, a lot of the worth of Twitter’s model is embedded in popular culture historical past. She identified that not many different social media firms have taken a verb corresponding to” tweet” and made it their very own — that was the ability of Twitter.

“Should you’re watching a film, or should you’re listening to a, I do not know, a presidential speech, there could be the phrase tweet in it or retweet in it,” Takahashi mentioned. “Are you able to simply think about the shift? It is simply so complicated for everyone.” 

Maybe a motive why X garnered a lot media consideration is as a result of, as founding father of branding firm NameStormers Mike Carr instructed Insider, it’s in full distinction to what individuals have come to know of the model.

Carr mentioned that the identify X evokes a technology-forward place (he described it to the New York Instances as “Large Brother” vibes) and, in some cultures, it may symbolize dying. Twitter, alternatively, is far softer and appeals to the extra Millenial/Gen X viewers that Twitter has come to symbolize, he mentioned.

“Birds are cute, they’re enjoyable, they chirp, they make noise, they discuss to 1 one other, they fly round,” Carr mentioned. “It is only a very approachable to me.”

“X is on the opposite reverse finish,” he added. “X is kind of excessive. It is techy, It is harsher.”

However Elon Musk, lengthy obsessive about the concept of a model named X, trudged on within the face of disapproval from customers. On Friday evening, a big flashing X brand was displayed atop the corporate’s San Francisco constructing, blinding the encompassing neighborhood.

“Should you truly take a look at the brand that they put up on the aspect of the constructing, it was black with a white define,” Carr mentioned. “It was kind of ominous. One a part of the X was a double line, the opposite a part of the X was a single line. It was a bit bit off-kilter or a bit bit off-center.”

‘I’d by no means wager towards Elon Musk‘

A model pivot will at all times ruffle feathers, however some consultants who spoke to Insider mentioned that how Musk strikes ahead with this shift may truly assist the model, which Musk himself mentioned is shedding cash as advertisers pull out.

Carr instructed Insider that Musk has most likely thought-about all of the associations the identify would evoke when renaming the corporate. Carr even noticed a optimistic in all of the press consideration that Musk is receiving. He mentioned that the dangerous transfer may inject newfound pleasure and curiosity into the social media firm.

“I’d by no means wager towards Elon Musk,” Carr mentioned. “I believe he is confirmed his critics improper many instances.” 

And it is not all criticism that Musk has been receiving. A brand new survey — albeit, one with a tiny pattern measurement of 5,000 individuals in comparison with the 250 million day by day common customers on Twitter — performed by CivicScience discovered that 36% of day by day customers and 43% of weekly customers felt optimistic concerning the transition to X, in comparison with 27% of day by day customers and 27% of weekly customers who felt negatively. 

Vanitha Swaminathan, a professor of selling and director for the Middle for Branding on the College of Pittsburgh, instructed Insider {that a} rebrand is often an indication that an organization is taking its mission in a distinct path. 

“I believe Elon Musk and X ought to actually use this as a chance to solidify and alter their positioning, lose a number of the destructive PR, be very, very disciplined in increase this model as a optimistic model identify with optimistic associations,” Swaminathan mentioned.