Exploring the Reasons Behind the Success of Dunkin’ and Lego Rebranding Efforts and the Failure of X
A spindly black X has replaced the fluffy bird that was once the symbol of the social media platform, Twitter.
Ditching the company’s well-known logo and changing its name to a letter often associated with danger, death and the unknown is just the latest user-burdening move CEO Elon Musk has taken since buying Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion.
But it is the most visually annoying.
The reaction has been mainly a mixture of ambivalence, derision and contempt. Longtime Twitter users, for the most part, are unhappy with what they saw as yet another unnecessary change that will dampen their enthusiasm for the social media platform.
So far, it’s hard to find anyone who applauded the change, except perhaps some of Elon Musk’s most devoted fans. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey stated that he thinks the fuss is overwhelming.
I pay close attention to this business cycle because I am a design researcher who studies social media and brand campaigns. Logos and product names change all the time and rarely cause so much fuss. But since these changes go deeper than most, I think the risks of damage to the company are higher.
X’s clumsy design
X may seem like a strange brand name to you, and the change may seem like a sudden one, but Musk has long been fond of the letter.
In 2000, PayPal’s founders ousted him as CEO for trying to change its name to “X.” His Tesla models are famously the S, 3, X and Y – which together appear to basically spell the words “SEXY” and one. of his many children is named X on his birth certificate.
I’d describe the new logo posted by a Twitter user as a black and white, sans-serif X consisting of two strokes. It’s minimal and modern — and a stark departure from Twitter’s iconic blue and white bird. That shade of blue makes you feel calm and serene; black conveys sophistication and mystery.
Yet even people who know nothing about design laugh at the logo’s simplicity and unprofessional execution. To me, the logo looks appropriate for a Metaverse strip club or a robot dating app.
Facebook’s meta journey
Oddball branding is hardly unusual for a major tech company.
When Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in 2021, it was part of a comprehensive, strategic and long-term plan. The change marked the company’s effort to move from a social media platform to a company focused on the metaverse.
While the goal of a vibrant metaverse is more theoretical than immediate, the branding still gave Metal a boost as it now seeks to shift its focus to artificial intelligence.
Meta’s rebranding emphasizes the importance of staying relevant and embracing innovation. The company recognized the changing landscape and showed readiness to adapt to the changing needs and preferences of consumers. When it realized that the metaverse wasn’t coming to fruition, the company focused elsewhere.
Perhaps this openness to trying new things explains why adoption of Threads, Meta’s new competitor on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, is apparently off to a strong start.
From Dunking to Dunkin and rebuilding the Lego brand
When Dunkin’ Donuts changed its name to Dunkin in 2018, the reception was mostly positive. Its customers seemed to understand that the company wanted to shed its close association with donuts — a high-calorie pastry with little nutritional value — and become a “beverage-driven, on-the-go brand.”
This brand was successful, and the company has also stuck to the slogan it adopted a dozen years earlier: “America Runs on Dunkin’.”
Lego had another corporate branding that students at the School of Economics learned as a model.
Lego was profitable, popular and loved throughout the 20th century, but around 2003 its sales began to decline. Presumably, kids had too many other toys and digital devices to play with, and simply didn’t have the time or patience to assemble small, colorful plastic blocks.
Undoubtedly, Lego conducted extensive market, ethnographic, and psychological research to better understand how people in general, and children in particular, play with its products. The company’s management realized that Lego products can be attached to almost anything.
Lego blocks are used in both original ways – kids make their own creations – and derivative ways, whether it’s a pirate ship or a dinosaur seen in a beloved movie.
So the company began to collaborate with “Star Wars”, Nintendo, “Jurassic Park” and other brands to market special Lego sets. It also released a movie in 2014 that grossed nearly $500 million, boosting Lego’s sales and profits.
BP’s brand crashed and burned; American Airlines had low flight altitude Many corporate rebrands either don’t work or don’t do much to help their companies.
In 2000, BP changed its brand from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum.
Despite efforts to reposition itself as an environmentally responsible company, its operations revealed a contradictory truth. While BP reportedly invested more than $100 million in rebranding, it still spent billions more on oil exploration than on renewable energy initiatives. BP abandoned the campaign a few years after its massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
After merging with US Airways in 2013, American Airlines rebranded away from its iconic 1968 logo of blue and red letters interspersed with an eagle, symbolizing American strength and ingenuity, to a sleek red-and-blue stripe punctuated by an abstract Eagle’s beak. company colors.
The company called the new logo the flight symbol. Some design experts called it parasitism.
Despite the controversy, the company kept its new look.
X’s final fate
I doubt the success of the X rebrand – and not just because I don’t like the new name and logo.
There are some challenging legal issues with naming a large company after a letter of the alphabet. The use of the letter X as a brand is already banned in certain countries due to its prevalence in pornographic branding.
And the implementation has been confusing on the company’s own website. Musk reportedly swiped the @x handle from its original user without offering any compensation.
Additionally, many users had already left the platform due to technical glitches and increased hate speech; Changing X might make them less likely to return, and others less eager to stick around.
In Musk’s efforts to create what he says will be an app that “does it all,” I think his X rebrand on Twitter took one step toward good for hardly anything.
