Good morning, Marketer, is X ever a good name for a product?
Except for marking the spot, X doesn’t have good connotations marketing-wise. X-rated, for example, is rarely used approvingly. “Solve for X” only reminds me that, despite what my teachers said, algebra has not been useful in the rest of my life. There are many Xs I would rather not run into (the feeling is likely mutual). Xs on the eyes of a cartoon character means they are unconscious or worse.
The exception to this is “eXtreme” sports which use the letter to indicate things will be pushed to the edge in an exciting way. However, even in that sense it seems an odd choice for rebranding a social media channel. Be that as it may, X is sort of what Elon Musk has picked as Twitter’s new name. I say sort of because on The Website Formerly Known as Twitter, the words tweet and twitter are still all over the UX, as is TwitterX — which really reminds me of the movie rating.
Our editor Kim Davis has more and better insight on the impact of the rebranding.
Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter introduction referred to soccer player Alex Morgan’s record-breaking 21 brand endorsements. Credit for the news should have gone to the entertainment and sports intelligence platform SponsorUnited, not ‘SportsUnited.’
Constantine von Hoffman,
Managing Editor
