Is rebranding Twitter as X a marketing mistake or might it be very intentional?
Is Musk marketing his brand X to his target audience the anti-woke, anti-cancel culture, stars and bars crowd?
On the other hand who wants to be known as Brand X?
Once upon a time, Brand X was always set up as the inferior brand to the named one in TV commercials.
Brand X was once ubiquitous in advertising of the 1960s. If it were absolutely necessary to trumpet the superiority of one’s own product, it could always be compared with that scapegoat, Brand X.
Brand X in TV commercials was always the competing product that left tattletale grey, failed to keep a frothy head, or came apart at the seams when tugged by two circus-strong men. The advertising industry often ran into trouble with the Federal Trade Commission for doctoring Brand X to ensure foolproof inferiority.
Then in 1960 the inevitable happened: unable to resist the lure of all those free plugs, several firms marketed their own, on-the-level Brand X products.
There was Brand “X” Window Cleaner, an efficient, cleaner invented by former Eisenhower Bodyguard Harry Chafvin Jr., who set up his own Brand “X” Corp. to manufacture the paste and a Brand “X” polishing cloth.
Jumping on the X bandwagon there was Brand “X” cigarettes, put out by three young Manhattan admen who founded Brand “X” Enterprises Inc. Brand “X” cigarettes were designed “for the man who is satisfied with nothing less than second best.” The president of Brand “X” Enterprises explained: “There are millions of people who don’t want to be first, who believe first place is too crowded. Our cigarette is for the man who, as a boy, dreamed of becoming Vice President.” Brand “X” Enterprises, Inc. was so confident of the audience appeal for the underdog market that it planned to put out a new detergent. Its name: WON’T.
Does Twitter want to be the brand that is thought of as less than its competitors?
Or thanks to Elon Musk, has that already happened?