Well, this is how life and marketing are. We already had an article written and ready to go (which I forgot to post last Friday), but we might need to interrupt our programmed post to talk, yet again, about Twitter.
What Now?
If you are like us and like to touch grass on the weekends with the phone in your hand, you might have seen the newest announcement that Elon Musk made yesterday, Sunday, July 23rd:
Followed by a confirmation that the URL x.com now redirects to Twitter.
Yes – this is LITERALLY the end of Twitter. Twitter is being rebranded.
What is Rebranding?
In simple terms, rebranding is changing a brand. Usually rebranding implies not only changing your name and logo but developing a new, differentiated identity. Usually, a rebranding happens for the following reasons:
- The need to evolve and shift
- The need to drive growth
- The need to reposition themselves within their current market.
- The need to expand into new markets.
- The need to refresh their image
In certain cases, rebranding might be a way to reposition a brand after a particular PR scandal or issue, and it should not be taken lightly. As Forbes mentions in their article “How To Rebrand After A PR Crisis: Nine Experts Weigh In“, a crisis-driven rebrand must be authentic if it is to achieve the purpose of rehabilitating a brand below the surface.
Why is Twitter Rebranding?
There is a lot of conversation online about the rebranding. According to a Tweet from Elon himself, the idea behind changing Twitter’s branding was to “embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique.” this sounds to me precisely like a PR scandal rebranding – but that is just my opinion I guess – maybe the intention is to disassociate the platform from all the lawsuits and issues going under Twitter’s name. Variety.com proposes the possibility of this being an attempt to recapture headlines and steer the conversation away from how Twitter compares with Meta’s Threads.
On the other hand, we might be all overthinking this: maybe there is no research or ulterior motive for the rebranding other than Elon and his infatuation with the letter X.
Why X?
For Starters, take a look at the above screenshot one more time. The letter X has been a part of everything Elon since always.
Let’s take a quick trip to 1999: X.com was an online bank co-founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho. While X.com did not live for long, it was the start of something bigger: x.com merged with a company named Confinity INC, and from that, PayPal was born.
In 2017, more than 15 years after X and Confinity merged, Elon purchased the X.com domain from PayPal for its “sentimental value” and mentioned his intention of creating an “everything app” using that name and domain.
There might not be an “everything app” still, but at least now Elon is back to using the x.com domain as he always wanted.
What do you think the future will bring to Twitter? Are we going to be “sending Xs” instead of tweets shortly? Is “Twitter Blue” now going to be called “X Blue”? Feel free to let us know how you feel about the change.
