On July 23rd, Elon Musk killed the little blue bird when he rebranded Twitter to X. The world couldn’t believe what was happening. But what was even more unbelievable, was the fact that the death of a virtual animal species caused a bigger outcry than the extinction of vast numbers of species on our planet. The WWF wanted to react in an appropriate way.

On July 23rd, Elon Musk killed the little blue bird when he rebranded Twitter to X. The world couldn’t believe what was happening. But what was even more unbelievable, was the fact that the death of a virtual animal species caused a bigger outcry than the extinction of vast numbers of species on our planet.

So, WWF turned Twitter’s rebranding into a pamphlet for species’ conservation and therefore created a timeline with the evolution of the Twitter logo to the rebranding of X. A simple image that disarmingly made visible the parallels of the death of the Twitter logo to the real extinction of species through the message: “Protect our wildlife, before it’s too late.”

When Elon Musk killed Larry, the blue Twitter bird, the strategy for the WWF to react to the extinction of the virtual bird and turn it into a pamphlet for species conservation was already rolled out. The re-post came via social media and chose the same media as Musk used to reach the digital world. WWF answered a social post with a social post, turning a business announcement into a strong message for the conservation of species.

We created a social media post with a timeline. We showed the evolution of the Twitter logo to the rebranding of X. A simple image that disarmingly made visible the parallels of the death of the Twitter logo to the real extinction of species through the message: “Protect our wildlife, before it’s too late.”

The post immediately went viral: Originally designed for the DACH region, it got translated into 26 languages. The press jumped on it and turned this simple post into a global conversation. The post received more than 2 million likes on Instagram, more than 200,000 on Twitter, sorry, on X, and more than 800,000 likes on LinkedIn. The campaign equaled media spendings of more than 20 million € with 0€ spent.