What you need to know:

• Elon Musk has placed a huge X over the Twitter brand and blue bird logo.
• It's the latest step in his vision to transform the microblogging site into an "everything app".
• Industry experts reckon advertisers will "wait and see" before making budget decisions, though suggest it could cause further investment hesitancy.
• Although binning a popular brand and 10 years of equity might seem foolhardy, few are betting against Musk. As one agency boss points out: "Elon's personal brand is probably worth more than Twitter's".

Twitter has rebranded as 'X' with analysts predicting it could become an 'everything app', in the vein of China's WeChat, complete with commerce, payments and games. That could prove more compelling to advertisers that the platform has so far struggled to convince. But for now many are scratching their heads.

Ditching the bird for ‘X’ pays homage to one of Musk’s earliest tech ventures. He had named a fintech startup X.com in 1999 before it merged with its competitor Confinity and, one year later, became PayPal. Twitter’s parent company is X Corp and the URL X.com has been redirected to Twitter’s homepage.

Acknowledging its struggles to hit the big time with advertisers and users, Twitter chief executive Linda Yaccarino said the rebrand will give the social microblogging site “a second chance to make a big impression.”

“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centred 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,” she said in a series of Tweets, a term that presumably will also need a makeover. Xeets, anyone?

“For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfil our great potential. X will do that and more.”

Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal advertising executive, was hired in May to bring stability to the platform after a rocky start to Musk’s ownership, and also persuade advertisers that the platform is open for business and a safe space for them to invest. For now, the jury is arguably more out than in. 

The Musk factor

Will this latest move to kill the blue bird go down well with brands?

Joe Frazer, Head of Growth and digital strategy and media agency Half Dome told Mi3 the rebrand is unlikely to affect investment decisions. He suggested Twitter/X has to do something, given the aggressive move from Mark Zuckerberg to clip its wings.

“What is more interesting is whether the rebranding, coupled with all of the new features Elon has rolled out, will result in user growth, or with the launch of Threads, will we start to see a decline in numbers,” he said.

“Every sense of conventional marketing wisdom would suggest the rebrand is a bad move because you are throwing away brand equity that has taken the best part of a decade to build. But then there’s the Elon Musk factor. He has built the most valuable car brand ever without advertising once…(and) arguably his personal brand is worth more than the Twitter brand.”

John Bevitt, the Managing Director of the consultancy Honeycomb Strategy, thinks the sudden rebrand could alienate some advertisers, but Musk has little more to lose: the majority of those that were going to leave or scale back investment on the platform would have already done so. Media buyers last week told Mi3 that Australian advertisers that returned to Twitter post-Musk takeover were spending far less.

In the short-term, Bevitt expects the rebrand to erode market value of the Twitter/X platform and will do little in itself to reengage advertisers, but expects Elon will be playing the long game.

“I feel like this is kind of a crossing point where people either jump off or they go, “Okay, cool. He's now making something new; maybe it's time to stay on and see what he can offer. A successful rebrand will be that in a year’s time nobody is missing 'Twitter', although I do think advertisers will hold out until his vision of an ‘everything app’ starts to materialise.” 

Other industry execs fear the move will backfire. Per James Dixon, chief digital officer of media agency Atomic 212: “Elon Musk subscribes to the adage that all publicity is good publicity. It has worked for him to date, but I suspect his customer base across Twitter and Tesla are getting weary.  It's starting to feel erratic and undermines the original values of the company.”

Rory Heffernan, Atomic’s National Managing Director, said the rebrand felt like Musk was still playing with his new toy rather than any meaningful attempt to illustrate how he intends to transform the microblogging site into an ‘everything app’. He believes the rebrand could further stoke advertiser uncertainty and hesitancy.

Attempts by rivals Meta and TikTok to develop versions of everything apps that are hugely popular in Asia have failed to gain traction in the West. But the prize is huge: WeChat represented the vast bulk of TenCent's Yuan31bn (AUD$6.41bn) first quarter revenues from social networking, while fintech and business services, which includes the WeChat Pay service, made up 32 per cent of Tencent's overall Yuan150bn (AUD$31bn) revenue for the quarter.

While Musk may eventually crack the 'everything app' nut, whether killing the Twitter brand and burying the blue bird logo is the best way to get there is open to question.