Three months ago, The SciFi Channel (scifi.com) announced that it was changing its name to Syfy today. It took all of three months for this news to finally reach me, but in all honesty, I’m not in the network’s core demographic. I actually caught the promo for it while watching a Twilight Zone episode over the weekend and really thought nothing of it until I read CNN’s article on the subject.
It appears from this article that the network wants to open the channel to a new, broader demographic. I assume that means they’ve saturated the science fiction genre and want to take on a larger audience. They probably feel that generalizing will give them a greater market. The name, I suppose, is an attempt to not alienate those embarrassed to say they watch science fiction. Lots of assumptions, but this is a blog, not an academic paper.
Those familiar with any of Al Reis’ writings and the general principals of branding already know this tune. It’s a bad move. Moving out of their key market and becoming just another channel isn’t going to help, it’s going to hurt. However, I’m not so sure I agree to the comparison to the New Coke situation, which was more a mistake in assuming that taste tests and quality matter over brand loyalty.
Here, you have a successful entity ruling a category trying to be generic. THAT’S the mistake. The name is irrelevant at this point. Those branding pundits that the CNN article seem to quote can’t be very good experts if their focusing on how the audience will react to the name. It’s not necessarily about the name, though it probably won’t help.
There exists a potential problem with a generic SciFi Channel name. Bravo and Spike did great rebranding with their names. However, they didn’t generalize. Spike moved to a male-central programming theme. Bravo devoted itself to “Fine Arts.” (Side note: how is ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ a ‘fine art’?) If Syfy is about a broader audience, they only stand to lose.
Could they have chosen a better name? Probably. Syfy is the same name in different clothing. They should look a little harder for a distinct name that stands out. Syfy still sounds like “SciFi” and still carried all the connotations associated with it. What we have is the potential to alienate a portion of their core audience while not really attracting who they want to. Sometimes you have to remember that a brand is spoken as much as it’s seen.
And who did it? According to several articles I found, it was an internal decision. That makes sense. Landor Associates, the branding firm for the network claims they had nothing to do with the name change. Do they want to distance themselves from such a possible err, I suppose I would to. I’ve had situations where clients ignore me and go on their own merry way. They do seem to be distancing themselves from the name more than the concept though, and in all honestly, while the name may not be good or thought out, that’s not the bad part of this decision.