People don’t respond well to social media logos generally, but they really dislike the new Twitter X, according to a study of 500 people by ad-testing company System1 Group.  

System1 Group used its new Test Your Idea program, which the company developed this year and which is similar to its ad-scoring program Test Your Ad. Both programs measure consumers’ real-time emotional responses to sight, sound and motion, and produce predictive scores indicating potential for short- and long-term profitability.   

The report details Emotional Response – what audiences feel (e.g., happiness, disgust, contempt) and how intensely they feel it.   

The 500 testers evaluated the new X logo against the old Twitter logo and the logos of Reddit, Threads and Truth Social.   

Each respondent saw every logo and the results reflected an overwhelming low Star Rating which predicts the business potential of a given idea. Using a 1 – 5-Star scale, the highest scoring logo from this test--the Twitter bird logo--came in at only 1.5 Stars.  Reddit followed with a 1.4 and Threads was third with a 1.3. Twitter X and Truth Social both scored a 1.0 rating. 

The X logo elicited the highest Emotional Intensity score and drew the highest amount of “disgust” among respondents, per the System 1 assessment. According to the testing service the reason is the one-dimensionality of the white X on a black background, and the absence of “life” elements connoting nature such as a bird, water, or the sun.  

“Based upon how low all the logos tested, I would say that social media has a logo problem,” said John Kearon, Founder & President of System1 Group. “To add to this, social media may be suffering from sensory overload from the consumer’s perspective. The number of social media platforms has proliferated tremendously over just the past few years and we may be seeing a result of too much; too many options.”