Rebranding the brand: How Musk can win with X

Humans will get used to anything, if it works

Most of the theories about why Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to “X” appear to be just sour grapes from people who already don’t like him. The rebranding won’t work, they hope.

I say “hope” because the history of success with rebranding projects is a mixed bag, at best. For some companies, rebranding is doomed to failure from the start. But for others, consumers eventually get used to the new brand surprisingly quickly.

No one likes to change. In fact, we’ll do anything to avoid experiencing it. The average person’s brain will unconsciously think it is under attack when it encounters a change (which explains some of the negative reactions to Musk’s rebranding). Yet the best marketers understand a deep human truth: people can get used to anything if you give them time.

Despite a rebranded company’s rhetoric about strategy, marketing and “new direction,” the truth is that the public will eventually acclimatise to any rebrand. Just keep doing what you do and, eventually, most people will forget the brand was ever any different.

The lesson of Musk’s Twitter rebrand is simple: it can’t be lipstick on a pig. The product or service should remain high quality, available, authentic and – above all – needed. If it can achieve this consistency, then it really doesn’t matter what the brand looks like.

The only question Musk should be asking is: Does Twitter still do what it says on the box? If the answer is yes – that Twitter is still the indispensable social network of choice for current affairs – then people can be expected to use the service no matter how many letters are in its logo.

When is it a good idea to rebrand?

As outlined in IA.com’s glossary article on brand, the concept of brand is a bit like a company’s reputation:

“A reputation, like a brand, is carefully built over years through the thousands of interactions a company has with its customers, both directly and indirectly. For this reason, a brand image can collapse in much the same way as a compromised personal reputation – and sometimes for the same reasons.”

In this way, just as it would be a bad idea for a person to arbitrarily change their name to get rid of a bad reputation, a company better have a decent reason for starting a rebranding project. It’s not only about erasing the past. It must be attached to an exciting vision of the future.

For this reason, every rebranding strategy falls broadly into one of two main boxes. Either the company has a need to change its brand, or it has spotted an opportunity that requires a rebrand.

Examples of a need for a rebrand might be after a merger. In such a situation, the strategic direction of each company must be aligned, which means both must compromise in some way since there won’t be room for both logos on the letterhead. Many mergers are akin to a whale swallowing a minnow, so in those situations, there’s no real need to rebrand. But if the merger was sufficiently large, the resulting entity will need to rebrand to avoid confusing the public.

On the other hand, when a business strategy no longer makes sense given a changing trend, a rebrand may be necessary to take advantage of the opportunity. In this case, Elon Musk has publicly announced a multi-year vision to use the Twitter service as the basis for an “everything app.” However, to pursue this vision, Twitter’s structure will need to radically change, perhaps multiple times over the next few years.

A rebrand is needed to leverage the opportunity.

What is that opportunity? The internet is converging. Many apps, software and platforms are accreting into one, convenient location as content essentially becomes interchangeable. It would be strange for Twitter to suddenly get involved with banking or ride-sharing. Yet simply from a practical standpoint, Musk understands that it’s silly for people to be forced to use dozens of loosely connected apps to perform daily tasks like reading the news, banking, talking with friends, etc.

Musk knows someone will eventually do this, so why not him? Twitter was a great starting point for creating an “everything app,” but it needed to be larger to leverage the opportunity. Why not bring hundreds of services onto one platform?

Only a rebranded Twitter could do anything it wanted – be whatever it needed to be. This idea was outlined in the press release for the rebranding:

“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity — centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we're just beginning to imagine.”

In other words, the rebrand of Twitter has created a special kind of intangible asset for Musk: space to play.

With X, anything that leads towards an “everything app” is relevant. Musk now has a green field of opportunities. Perhaps a previous idea from the team didn’t quite fit on a micro-blogging platform like Twitter. Yet with a platform like X, if the idea promises to make people’s lives easier, why not give it a try?

Twitter was one thing. X could be anything. That’s the power of rebranding.

Rebranding done right

While there’s never a perfect analogue to something like this (all companies are different), there are plenty of lessons in the history of rebranding.

One of the better examples was McDonald’s. In 2005, the fast-food chain’s leadership realised the company's image no longer resonated with a growing segment of health-conscious customers. To address this demand, McDonald's introduced salads, fruit options and higher-quality ingredients alongside a general reduction in trans fats, sodium and added sugars in all its products.

I don’t know if many people remember, but McDonald’s used to be marketed primarily as a fast-food restaurant for families. Since the leadership knew a more mature audience would generate greater profits, the company began to market to adults and young professionals by emphasising quality ingredients and sustainable sourcing.

This was a dangerous move since Happy Meals – its core product for families and children – made up 40% of McDonald’s profits at the time.

Part of its rebrand included the introduction of the McCafé range which positioned the company as a more sophisticated brand and allowed it to compete more effectively with coffeehouse chains. McDonald's also created a more contemporary atmosphere in its restaurants, complete with comfortable seating, free Wi-Fi and digital menu boards.

The business flourished. Once the rebrand was complete, it experienced eleven consecutive quarters of growth and its best-ever year of sales growth in 2008. By responding to changing market demands for healthier options and appealing to a more mature audience, McDonald's revitalised its image.

X marks the spot?

In terms of rebranding, the X experiment seems to be going quite well.

A week after Twitter rebranded, the numbers show the social network has gained ground. According to Reuters, the platform added 1.6 million new users since the rebranding, reaching a new high of 540 million active accounts (and that’s after the company purged tens of millions of “bot” accounts earlier in the year). By comparison, Twitter had 229 million active accounts in May 2022, according to company SEC filings.

Looking at the wider internet ecosystem, aside from a few also-rans in the micro-blogging environment, X, for all intents and purposes, still has a monopoly on this specific social media format. And you know what they say about monopolies: it’s always a good investment.

It may still be too early to tell, but X could be following the rebranding path of McDonald’s by maturing its brand to capture a larger trend opportunity. People laughed at McDonald’s for its rebranding. I recall questioning the wisdom of a fast-food chain suddenly offering salads. Surely that wouldn’t work. It didn’t make any sense. But aside from a dip in sales between 2014-2019 leading up to Covid, McDonald’s is still performing rather well.

I also hear plenty of giggles about Musk’s rebranding project. Some of the concern is warranted, sure. However, the jokes about how users will be “excreting” rather than “retweeting” seem to be sour grapes. After all, “retweeting” wasn’t a word until Twitter came into existence in 2006. It’s always funny to see people defend words that they were trained into using by a private company.

But this just reinforces the point of this article. Consumers can get used to anything if you give them enough time.

If you keep offering the same, decent service or product, always tweaking the edges to improve it, then it’s almost guaranteed that one day, maybe even next year, “excreting” might enter common parlance (although I’m sure 500 million active users will invent something a little sexier).

That’s the reality of the rebranding process. So long as it leads to something better, consumers won’t mind what logo is on the tin. If Musk can make a superior product – perhaps even his promised “everything app” that people will use – then the new brand “X” will be an excellent fit since its functionality and usefulness will compel people to use it.

But if his critics are right, then Musk couldn’t have picked a better symbol for the demise of a great company. After all, an 'x' is something we've all been conditioned to click to close…

Just putting that out there.