The Bottom Line

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Evan Davis hosts the business conversation show with insights from the people at the top.

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The Bottom Line: Rebranding

19/10/2023

Rebranding

BBC Radio 4 - The Bottom Line, Rebranding

The purpose and the pitfalls of transforming a company’s image

Changing a product's name and logo is risky, so will Elon Musk's transformation of Twitter into X succeed, and how do you get a rebrand right? Evan Davis and guests discuss.

Elon Musk’s decision to rename Twitter ‘X’ has been met with confusion, and in some cases even anger, but where does it rank amongst the best and worst rebrands?

Evan Davis and guests discuss the complexity of changing a company or product name, logo and message, the reasons for doing it, and how to make it a success.

These overhauls can be risky, though, and failure expensive – the panel discusses one the UK’s textbook rebranding disasters.

Evan is joined by:

Lee Rolston, chief growth officer at Jones Knowles Ritchie;
Caroline Wiertz, professor of marketing at Bayes Business School (formerly Cass) – City, University of London;
Amanda Mackenzie, former chief marketing and communications officer at Aviva;
Keith Wells, founder and director of Brandwell.

PRODUCTION TEAM:

Producer: Simon Tulett
Editor: China Collins
Sound: Graham Puddifoot and Rod Farquhar
Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman

(Picture: The new ‘X’ logo displayed on a smartphone with the old Twitter logo in the background. Credit: Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.)

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