X Marks the spot

Happy Friday 

How was your week? Back from a week off at the cottage with my crew and couldn't resist making my first note about the Twitter rebrand to X. 

Twitter established a level of brand equity rivaling some of the world's biggest brands. Reaching "verbification" status, like you don't search something up online, you Google it. 

For any marketer, the goal is to leave their brands in a better state than when they took it to drive sustainability. And with this X brand name is the opposite of that. Let's just say that Gap and Tropicana must be relieved that someone else has finally taken their spot in what not to do.

Brand building is all about, well, building.

It took 10 years for Datsun to clarify their brand change to Nissan to the US consumers

It took 2 years of campaigning for Cottonelle to prepare consumers to change to Charmin while staying #1

I bet it took just about the same time before going live for Pepsi, and CIBC, to come up with their new 

identity

And 10 more years of relevance like Dunkin and KFC have managed to do with theirs.

A little bird told me it sure didn't take that long at Twitter, maybe not even as long as it takes to write 140 characters to come up with an X and have managed to waste billions in brand equity with one letter. 

But if anything, one brand came on top of this waste of brand equity and made gold out of it. 

WWF is all about saving wildlife and reinforced their brand purpose with this award-worthy execution.

It's too late to rewind and save the bleu bird from extinction, Elon.

Until then, see you next week.