This week's PR Roundup looks at a new study showing the brand decline of X (formerly known as Twitter), presidential debate facial expressions gone viral, and an opportunity for communicators to share their smarts with the Institute for Public Relations.
Decline of X
What happened: It’s no secret that X (formerly known as Twitter) has lost advertisers, particularly after CEO Elon Musk’s expletive-laced rant about those leaving the platform in Nov. 2023. Questionable content pushes and moderation also caused advertisers some hesitancy over the past several years of Musk’s leadership.
But now the proof is in the pudding. New data from Brand Finance, a leading brand valuation consultancy, reveals that X has dropped out of its global media brand ranking. Every year, Brand Finance tests 5,000 of the biggest brands and publishes over 100 reports, ranking brands across all sectors and countries. The Brand Finance Media 50 2024 ranking includes the world’s top 50 most valuable and strongest media brands.
According to Brand Finance, brand value is understood as the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market. Brand strength is the efficacy of a brand’s performance on intangible measures relative to its competitors.
If you follow X’s value history, in January 2022, Brand Finance valued Twitter at $5.7 billion, which fell to nearly $3.9 billion in 2023. Musk purchased the site in mid-2022. In 2024, the brand's value plummeted further to just $673.3 million.
According to Fortune, X experienced a sharp decline in ad revenue, plummeting to approximately $600 million per quarter in 2023 from over $1 billion per quarter in 2022. This reduction is particularly notable as ad sales constitute approximately three-quarters of X’s total revenue.
Communication takeaways: This may be why X announced a new head of marketing just this week—for a brand refresh and clean slate. However, a sinking reputation needs more than just new marketing leadership to recover.
Brand Finance notes that X’s brand strength index (BSI) score has declined considerably by 12.7 points to 56.9 (out of 100), signaling a major reputational crisis that the brand is struggling to overcome.
Richard Haigh, Managing Director at Brand Finance, says Musk’s overall rebranding of Twitter has resulted in “controversy,” as well as a “dramatic and abrupt decline in brand value and strength.”
“The hasty abandonment of a globally recognized name, without a clear migration plan, has had disastrous consequences, alienating key stakeholders and eroding the brand’s core strengths,” Haigh says. “This is reflected in the brand’s weaker scores in the familiarity, reputation and recommendation metrics of [our] research."
That goes to show that sometimes, even though a brand has some issues, as Twitter did financially when Musk took it over, it also had a built-in audience and brand reputation—which takes years to build up, and will take years to recover.
And what were Brand Finance’s most valuable media brands? Google maintains the number one spot for the fourth consecutive year, and TikTok followed in second place.
Putting Your Best Face Forward
What happened: In this world, it’s not difficult to become a meme, particularly as a public figure. And for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential debate appearance on Sept. 10, it wasn’t just what she said, but also what she didn’t say.
Harris’s facial reactions to some of former President Donald Trump’s statements, particularly the now-infamous, “they’re eating the pets,” took off on social media.
Teacher when you didn’t do the reading but have a comment pic.twitter.com/BPAk9j1rYU
— The.Ink, from Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) September 11, 2024
Communications takeaways: While sometimes it’s not great for political candidates to go viral (see Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance and childless cat ladies), in this case, viewers shared her expressions in a positive light.
Isabelle Dienstag, partner and co-founder of Stomping Ground Strategies, says Harris won this debate with her facial expressions alone.
“She gave side-eye, she gave disbelief, and she gave earnestness when she spoke about her plans to lift up the American people,” Dienstag says. “Her real-time reactions made her relatable and authentic—something Democrats have struggled to replicate since former President Barack Obama."
Rebecca Evans, another partner and co-founder at Stomping Ground Strategies, added that sometimes it pays to not always follow standard practice when it comes to camera time and self expression.
"Traditionally, political consultants will tell their candidates to face forward—don't look at your opponent,” Evans says. “Harris maximized her message by looking directly at Trump when he answered. She won the headlines with that alone—staring him down. In the content-hungry social world, those looks went far. And they were genuine—voters can tell when verbal and nonverbals are overly rehearsed or disingenuous."
Opportunity to Share Your PR Research
The Institute for Public Relations (IPR) announced a Call for Presentations this week for its 2025 IPR Bridge Conference. The submission deadline is Oct. 30, 2024.
According to Tina McCorkindale, IPR President and CEO, the conference brings together mid to senior-level academics and practitioners to talk about the issues that matter most to public relations professionals including the latest in communications research, with interactive discussions and programming.
The Bridge Conference intends to close the gap between PR pros and academics by allowing them to present research at a peer-reviewed conference, network and learn from each other.
The 2025 conference will take place at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C on April 9 and 10.
Nicole Schuman is Managing Editor at PRNEWS.