A flash of the blindingly obvious.

“How about nobody calls Twitter, X, or Facebook, Meta?” he asked. “A rose by any other name…” I mumbled….“…is just a weed,” she said, drilling the pigskin over the uprights.  

And thus, for better or other, came the fun little grenade you’ll find at the bottom of this post.

Still makes me smile.

But then, I began to wonder how two of the planet’s most notoriously effective tech innovators could each end up authoring such singularly unsuccessful corporate rebrands—X and Meta.

And get so little for it.

Note the word choice. We’re not talking about outright failures, a la New Coke or Chevy’s classic LatAm blunder with the Nova (as in “no va” in Spanish).

Instead, this is about the riddle wrapped in the enigma wrapped in WTF were they thinking in launching a rebrand on this scale with no more apparent strategy than a “thou shalt” and “because I said so.”

Likely answer: they pulled the trigger simply because it was their own self-interest. Which is very different than the interests of their audiences.

People grok that faster and with more acuity than we masters of the persuasive universe tend to credit. Vaporish promises on the order of “thrilling new capabilities at a date TBD,” whether an “everything app” or the wonders of metaverse, don’t exactly qualify.

Nor should they.  

After all, as the brand gurus love to reiterate, the essence of the thing is something that lives in other folk’s heads—perception, image, reputation. All leading to a relationship with its own dynamics.

And you don’t need Maslow as your last name to know that the heart inclines foremost towards that which delivers something of value to those three all-important parties: me, myself, and I.

So, okay, the book is far from closed on both these cases. X’s new CEO claims that average daily use has reached an all-time high and 90% of advertisers have returned to the platform. Similarly, Meta’s share price is considerably up and, to the extent that the rebrand was intended to deliver political cover, might have done.

But I’m still stuck on the coulda, shoulda, and woulda of both opportunities—all the things that flow from thinking about your consumers, respecting their importance, and taking the time to build the connection.

Seems blindingly obvious, doesn’t it?