Twitter turning into X is set to kill billions in brand value

BLOOMBERG

It’s rare for corporate brands to become so intertwined with everyday conversation that they become verbs. It’s rarer still for the owner of such a brand to announce plans to intentionally destroy it.
Elon Musk decreed that Twitter’s product name would be changed to “X,” and that he is getting rid of the bird logo and all the associated words, including “tweet.” Musk’s move wiped out anywhere between $4 billion and $20 billion in value, according to analysts and brand agencies.
“It took 15-plus years to earn that much equity worldwide, so losing Twitter as a brand name is a significant financial hit,” said Steve Susi, director of brand communication at Siegel & Gale.
Musk, whose company has already declined significantly in value since he purchased it for $44 billion in October, announced the change. A new black “X” logo, designed by a fan, began to appear across the site. New Chief Executive Officer Linda Yaccarino outlined the company’s vision for X to become a site for audio, video, messaging, payments and banking.
Analysts and brand agencies call the product’s renaming a mistake. Twitter is one of the most recognisable social media brands, said Todd Irwin, founder of brand agency Fazer. Bird decals adorn small businesses and websites worldwide, alongside Instagram and Facebook logos.
Twitter’s popularity has also made verbs like “tweet” and “retweet” part of modern culture, used regularly to explain how celebrities, politicians and others communicated with the public, said Joshua White, assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University.
X will require the company to rebuild that cultural pull and linguistic consensus from scratch. But that may be part of the motivation, so users stop comparing Twitter post-takeover to what it was before. “It’s an exceptionally rare thing — in life or in business — that you get a second chance to make another big impression,” Yaccarino tweeted.
Other tech companies have renamed themselves in recent years. Google turned into Alphabet Inc to allow different businesses within the company to grow without being tied to search. Facebook changed into Meta Platforms Inc in order to emphasize the company’s commitment to the metaverse. But the product names remained; we still google things by going to Google.
That’s worth a lot. Twitter’s brand value is estimated at about $4 billion, according to brand valuation consulting firm Brand Finance. The firm values the Facebook brand at $59 billion and Instagram at $47.4 billion.