When the unpredictable Elon Musk decided to jettison more than a decade of brand-equity and change from Twitter to X, abandoning the globally recognised blue bird, he tried to explain that it wasn’t just a name change but part of a plan to create an “everything app”.
Yet the rest of the world remains unconvinced, and a recent survey of 5,000 Australians found only 20% viewed the rebrand positively. The truth is that rebranding is too often seen as an easy issue management strategy to move on from a dubious past or unwelcome associations.
For example, there is no doubt as to why Kentucky Fried Chicken chose to officially become KFC in 1991. The company frankly admitted it was to distance itself from the connotations of fried food in an increasingly health-conscious market.
Similarly, Weightwatchers changed its name in 2018 to WW, apparently to reduce the emphasis on weight and fat-shaming and focus more on wellness. Though as the BBC commented, “People don’t go to Weight Watchers because they want to feel well. They go because they want to lose weight.”
Unlike the reborn KFC, their name-change is much less sure-footed. The CEO of the newly-named WW Incorporated was unable at the time to explain what the letters stood for. Even five years later the company still uses the internet domain weightwatchers.com, and their web homepage and TV ads still have both the WW and Weightwatchers names.
Apart from responding to such emerging social issues, a name change is also a popular way to mask controversial products. Like the fossil fuel industry, where British Petroleum repositioned itself as BP; Norwegian state-owned Statoil became Equinor; Danish Oil and Natural Gas became Orsted; and Indian-Australian coalminer Adani became Bravus. Or the tobacco industry, where American giant Philip Morris changed its name to the deliberately characterless Altria, and Britain’s Imperial Tobacco Group renamed itself Imperial Brands.
A name change can also be applied as a crisis management recovery strategy. This happened after ValuJet Airlines DC-9 Flight 592 caught fire mid-flight and crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 people aboard. In what Time magazine called a “corporate disappearing act” the troubled airline shed its questionable reputation and cheap-sounding name by buying a smaller rival and adopting its name, then resumed operations as AirTran Airways. AirTran later had the best safety record among U.S. carriers and was purchased by Southwest Airlines.
Yet a name change to project a new image is not always so effective. For example, when Britain’s Royal Mail decided to rename itself Consignia in the hope it might convey a more modern, efficient organisation. Unfortunately, the public were simply confused and within a year they reverted to the old name.
Similarly, the public (and even his ex-wife) have largely ignored the confusing fact that Kanye West officially changed his name to Ye.
Big tech organisations like to choose original names for their holding companies – with Facebook now part of Meta and Google now part of Alphabet.
Which may help explain why Elon Musk decided to ditch the massive global brand Twitter in favour of X, to match the name of the parent organisation (though the platform’s URL remains as Twitter.com). His CEO Linda Yaccarino cited X as “the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities” . . . whatever that word salad means. More than six months later, the media are still almost invariably referring to “X, formerly known as Twitter”.
Perhaps Musk should have looked to the recent history of a similar corporate name. The private military contractor Blackwater had to rebrand after being caught up in shocking human rights violations and unlawful killings during the war in Iraq. After four Blackwater mercenaries were convicted and sentenced to prison, the company re-named itself Xe, which was said to be intentionally chosen to be meaningless. However, no-one knew how to pronounce it, and when the company was later acquired by a group of private investors the name was changed again, to Academi.
Given the short-lived fate of Xe, only time will tell how long Twitter remains as X.
managingoutcomes 