Love him or loathe him, one thing you cannot deny is that Twitter has definitely not been boring under Elon Musk. From advertisers deserting the site in their droves to the mass exodus of staff, the social media site has never been far from the headlines. And, while its rebrand to X appears to be about as popular as a bacon sandwich at a bar mitsvah, it has certainly sparked plenty of debate.
Nowhere more so it seems than in Germany, which is the second country on the Decision Marketing Creative Review Summer Sojourn, designed to showcase the latest marketing and advertising campaigns wooing our friends on the Continent.
While many have condemned the rebrand, animal and environmental charity the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) had other ideas about creating a conversation.
Working alongside McCann Germany, the WWF in Germany decided to use the timeline of logo changes as a way to showcase how 1 million species of birds are currently threatened with extinction.
In homage to the classic human evolution timeline image and overlaying the evolving Twitter logos, the post ran on both LinkedIn and Twitter (or that may be X but no-one seems to be able to tell you) stated: “A quarter of mammal species, one in eight bird species, more than 30% of sharks and rays, and 40% of amphibian species are endangered.”
McCann Germany executive creative director Pedro Americo admits that, at first glance, Twitter’s rebranding did not connect directly with the WWF but the agency saw an opportunity to participate in the rebranding conversation once it had the insight that the X meant the end of the blue bird’s era.
In the classic comic book illustration world, the X is commonly used for that purpose; the execution then came naturally.
Pedro explained: “The key message people should take from this it that today we are facing the greatest extinction of species since the end of the dinosaur era. These are global facts that need attention, and we are happy that this post is bringing this message all around social media.”
So, what is the consensus around the Decision Marketing office?
Well, first up, hats off to WWF for jumping aboard the Twitter debate to bring its own message about animal extinction. While the Twitterati are in limbo – are they now the Xeratti? – the domain name remains the same, so it is difficult to know what the hell is going on.
Of course, there is no confusion for WWF and, to be fair, it’s irrelevant whether the site is called Twitter or X. Outside the social media bubble animals are being wiped out by humans, end of.
This campaign might have been devised and run only in Germany, but it is relevant all over the world.
Decision Marketing Adometer: A “Tutonic touch of magic” 9 out of 10
