Is Elon Musk right to ditch the Twitter logo?

When Jean-Pierre Dube saw the quality that billionaire Elon Musk was scrapping Twitter's bluish vertebrate logo successful favour of an Art Deco-style achromatic and achromatic X, the selling prof thought it was a joke.

"Why instrumentality a recognised brand, with a batch of marque superior astir it and past wholly propulsion it distant and commencement from scratch?" said Prof Dube, who teaches astatine the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

"In the short-term, it seems weird." But successful the agelong term, could it work?

Mr Musk's takeover of Twitter past twelvemonth has been punishing for the societal media platform.

Advertising gross has dropped by half, Mr Musk said this month, arsenic large brands pulled back, wary of changes helium has made, including however the steadfast handles verified accounts and moderates content. Abrupt layoffs and unpaid bills person besides led to atrocious property and lawsuits.

Estimates by Fidelity, which has a involvement successful the company, suggest it is present worthy conscionable a 3rd of the $44bn ($34.3bn) that Mr Musk paid for Twitter successful October.

Consultancy Brand Finance recently estimated that the firm's marque was worthy $3.9bn, down 32% since past twelvemonth - a autumn it attributed to Mr Musk's "aggressive concern approaches".

Research suggests that rebrands tin wage disconnected - peculiarly if a steadfast is successful occupation oregon wants to alteration direction, said Yanhui Zhao, a prof of selling astatine the University of Nebraska Omaha.

His reappraisal of 215 rebranding announcements by publically listed companies recovered that much than fractional of those businesses saw affirmative returns aft they rebranded.

That means Mr Musk's moves could beryllium timely, helium said, noting the multi-billionaire's ambition to alteration Twitter into an "everything app" akin to China's WeChat, a societal messaging work connected which users tin nonstop money, hail taxis, publication hotels and play games, among different functions.

"This is simply a overmuch needed rebranding due to the fact that of the strategical re-direction of Twitter," helium told the BBC, by email.

But occurrence becomes little apt erstwhile a institution is successful turmoil, warned Shuba Srinivasan, selling prof astatine Boston University's Questrom School of Business. She said it was an particularly risky move, fixed each the societal media competitors, specified arsenic Mark Zuckerberg's Threads, rushing to capable Twitter's role.

"The rebranding is apt to corroborate the fearfulness of galore Twitter users that the acquisition by Musk signalled the extremity of the Twitter they knew," she said.

Nor is it wide that a rebranding addresses Twitter's problems - galore of which stem successful portion from Mr Musk, Prof Dube said.

"I didn't deliberation determination was a marque occupation and marque individuality occupation arsenic overmuch arsenic a enactment problem," helium said.

In a May interrogation with satire site, The Babylon Bee, Mr Musk previewed the change, saying helium thought helium needed to "broaden the branding for Twitter" to assistance him win astatine pushing the institution beyond the abbreviated substance posts that made it famous.

But immoderate analysts said that the imaginable of this imaginativeness being palmy faces agelong odds.

In June, advisory steadfast Forrester Research published a study called "The ace app model has closed," which argued that tech giants specified arsenic Google and Apple presently connection ace app-like functions to billions of users successful the US and Europe, portion pugnacious regulatory hurdles and fierce contention limits opportunities for others.

It noted that WeChat, the illustration that has been cited by Mr Musk, became ascendant successful China early, earlier different outgo services emerged - and successful portion arsenic a effect of method issues, specified arsenic constricted telephone memory, which discouraged downloading aggregate apps.

"While Musk's imaginativeness is to crook X into an 'everything app,' this takes time, money, and radical - 3 things that the institution nary longer has," Mike Proulx, a probe manager astatine Forrester, wrote aft Mr Musk's announcement, adding that helium thought the steadfast would unopen oregon beryllium be bought retired successful the adjacent 12 months.

Even if Twitter's halfway users successful media, authorities and concern enactment loyal, arsenic they person successful the past, making X palmy would necessitate information from a acold broader idiosyncratic basal - nary tiny challenge, said Harvard Business School prof Andy Wu.

But helium added that, Twitter faced difficulties earlier Mr Musk's takeover and would payment from immoderate risk-taking.

"We tin statement whether those changes are successful the close direction, but Twitter does request changes," helium said.