This is the seventh article in our series on global brands that have recently redefined their positioning. These changes may include a new brand purpose, a refreshed positioning statement, restructured brand architecture or an updated target audience.
You can find earlier parts of this series here: [Part 1], [Part 2], [Part 3], [Part 4], [Part 5] and [Part 6]. Together, they analyse how brands such as British Airways, Cadbury, Carlsberg, Dr Pepper, Dunkin’, Greenpeace, Gucci, Lynx (Axe), Mercedes-Benz, Santander, Taco Bell, Accenture, Evian and Marks & Spence have evolved their strategies.
Today’s article looks at the most recent repositioning of Adidas, Porsche and X.
Adidas
From its launch, Adidas has focused on meeting the needs of professional athletes, particularly runners. The brand believes that “through sport, we have the power to change lives” and therefore, everything it does is rooted in sport. For years, Adidas seemed to have a different perspective on sport compared to Nike – stricter, more serious and less forgiving. While Nike focused on democratising sport, built on the belief that anyone can be an athlete, Adidas prioritised performance, celebrating those who had achieved success and continually honed their craft (“Impossible is Nothing”). However, this strict approach began to soften when Bjørn Gulden took over as CEO in 2023.
The new direction Adidas took in 2024 was driven by its declining relevance among Gen Z consumers. Research revealed that its traditionally strict, performance-focused approach to sport no longer resonated with younger audiences, who felt overwhelmed by the pressure to excel. Carly Rushford, Senior Manager of Global Brand Communications at Adidas, explained: “We were losing touch with Gen-Z, and we knew they were losing touch with sport. (…) Sport wasn’t fun anymore when negative pressure was coming from all angles (…) from parents, coaches, friends, and teammates – to perform in a way that felt heavy and intense.”
In response, Adidas launched a new communication platform, “You Got This”, shifting its focus from pure performance to encouragement, self-belief and rediscovering the joy of sport.
Porsche
In the 1990s, Porsche was on the brink of bankruptcy and, to save the company, its then CEO, Wendelin Wiedeking, introduced major operational and strategic changes. One of them was a new approach to the product portfolio, which at the time consisted only of traditional sports cars. Wiedeking believed that the Porsche brand should expand to include models for everyday driving, such as SUVs and sedans. The move was heavily criticised by brand purists but proved commercially transformative. The Porsche Cayenne and Panamera became bestsellers and secured the brand’s long-term profitability.
To the majority of people, Porsche represents an unattainable dream and is one of the most desired and envy-evoking automotive brands in the world. In the 2010s, Porsche executives believed that while such an image strengthened the brand’s appeal, it also risked positioning Porsche as a car to be admired rather than owned, implying its products were reserved for special occasions. To counter this perception, the company worked to ensure that its aspirational image did not hinder sales.
This effort was reflected not only in the expansion of Porsche’s model range but also in its communication. The brand’s long-standing values of tradition, innovation, design, performance and exclusivity were complemented by less obvious traits such as functionality, everyday usability and social acceptance.
In recent years, references to everyday practicality have largely disappeared from Porsche’s communication. The brand’s current strategy places greater emphasis on aspiration, emotion and personal fulfilment, positioning Porsche more clearly as a dream car brand. The idea of Porsche as “engineered for everyday use” has been replaced by a focus on individuality, freedom and the pursuit of one’s goals. This shift is reflected in the company’s current brand statement, “Porsche is a brand for people who follow their dreams” as well as in one of its core objectives defined as “ensuring that the brand remains desirable and exclusive in the future”.
X
X, formerly known as Twitter, was launched in 2006 as a side project at the podcasting company Odeo. It began as an SMS-based tool for sharing short updates but evolved into a global social network and a key platform for public discourse, used by politicians, journalists, celebrities and everyday users to share news, opinions and cultural moments. In 2022, Elon Musk acquired the company and rebranded it as X in 2023.
Initially, Twitter’s mission was “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers”. Over time, the focus shifted from self-expression to real-time discovery – the benefit of knowing what’s happening in the world right now (“the what”) and seeing it from every point of view (“the why”). The social and community aspects of the platform were gradually downplayed in favour of positioning Twitter as a source of live information.
After Elon Musk acquired Twitter and rebranded it as X, the platform’s brand strategy shifted almost overnight. X is no longer positioned as a space for real-time news and conversation but as an all-in-one digital ecosystem inspired by China’s WeChat, integrating payments, video, commerce, long-form content and AI. As Linda Yaccarino, X’s former CEO, put it: “We transformed Twitter into X, the everything app, where everyone is increasingly connected to everything they care about.”
At the heart of this transformation is the value X champions above all else: freedom of expression, which in practice has meant looser content moderation and the return of previously banned accounts. The rebrand to X involved dropping Twitter’s iconic bird and all its distinctive brand assets, alongside a shift in tone. While Twitter was quirky, informative and democratic, X has adopted a more provocative, polarising and tech-focused voice.
Each of the three brands featured in this article has redefined its strategy in a different way. Adidas softened its strict approach to sport, Porsche returned to building an aspirational image of its cars, and X almost entirely wiped out what Twitter had built, launching a new proposition aimed at a newly defined target audience.
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