Sy Fy: The Latest Mess From Another Stupid Branding Company

On Tuesday morning, the Sci Fi channel became Sy Fy, which you can be assured will be back as Sci Fi not long after that. Just about everyone who has heard about this wondered "What branding company is sleeping with who over there?" You cannot pretend to like this moniker. There are reasons for this change--and none make sense. I don't know why they did it, but as one who's watched thousands of companies make change for no reason, here are some guesses:

1. They needed a slogan and they'd run out of creativity (the New York Times called their new name an experimental laxative; that's pretty creative). Sci Fi conjured up the gag "Imagine Greater" because they want to be like Apple ("Think Different"). With a mindless slogan on their hands, they used sleight of hand and imagined a greater-than-dumb trademark name for the network so people would mock it rather than their ludicrous tagline.

2. Just like Headline News is now HLN, Learning Channel became TLC, American Movie Classics fell into AMC, Game Show Network calls itself GSN, or Outdoor Channel morphed into VS., it's bad form now to have more than a few letters in your name. Sy Fy is fewer than Sci Fi. The History Channel even changed to just History last year; it would have been THC were it not been for similarities to the ingredient in pot. OXYGEN would have been OXY yet it sounds like oxycodone and better still, Bill Mays owns the prefix outright! This massive shortening routine got even more bizarre when E! Channel's E! True Hollywood Story is now tossed off as THS!

Then there is truTV, which is Court TV's newish name. Weird. I just found out it has no content from the late Truman Capote. As for Spike, does Spike Lee know that it will be Spi soon?

3. Change is not good all the time; people get antsy all the time. Sci Fi wants to program more than science-fiction shows. So, like Grandma used to say: Nu? There are subtle ways to manage this--for instance tell people, "We're still Sci Fi but we have expanded into newer dimensions!" The concept of expansion without screaming is foreign to corporate monoliths (Sy part of the NBC Universal "family").

4. A branding company sauntered in and told the suits it's time to grow with the times. That happens a lot, and quite needlessly. Slick branders speak a hi-toned language to make Senior VPs, all of whom are worried about their jobs, go "Man we gotta do this now!" I harken back to truTV, which has fared horribly since the change. You don't know this because no one watches it--tru is a trailer trash version of reality TV. Or, as they pointed out: it's "Not Reality. It's Actuality." Both of these networks think its audience is the lowest of common denominators. And oh yeah, the former Court TV laid off over 150 people last week. That, my friends, is tru(e).

5. Sy Sims is funding the rebrand. That explains Sy. As for the Fy suffix, one of the Sci Fi chiefs was in the military and doesn't know how to spell Semper Fi. That's all I got.

I told my closest pal about Sy Fy and he said he wished he could have been in the room when the decision was made. Since he's not in marketing, I wondered why. "So I could have seen the look on the faces of people who heard the top person say 'Great idea'."

Just because someone wants to do something 'different' or 'greater than' what existed before, you could in fact be the sane person at your company and step in with the loudest voice on record and suggest that aybe we should reconsider. Or better yet: "Do we need to change this much?" Even if the business isn't skyrocketing this second, there is that one reality: a brand that's known the world over!

Or remind the doofuses how far orange icon Tropicana fell after tossing a well-loved carton design away early this year, after which it lost valuable market share. When asked why 2009 was a downer, a spokesperson pointed to the change of carton: "Draw a line from there."

Once again, it doesn't take anyone's help to make you look stupid.

Follow Richard Laermer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/laermer

Comments

[Jaynet2000]

It looks like someone is investigating the possibility of a competing Science Fiction Channel in the U.S. Even if it doesn't happen, the home page definitely sums up the frustration of many of us long time Science Fiction fans, who used to be Sci-Fi Channel fans until so many stupid moves. I can't believe SyFy never reserved the domain. Check it out- www.syfyi.com.

[Chuckwheat]

Sounds very sissified.

[DonRoberto]

Not so much dumb, as transparent. SciFi (SyFy?) should be so lucky as Coca-Cola was with the New Coke campaign, which was actually a success because it 1) increased Coca-Cola's shelf space in supermarkets, and thus its sales, and 2) it revived a flagging product (old Coke) which had previously been losing market share to Pepsi.

SyFy isn't much of a name, though. But it's better than catching syfylis.

[NotStarvingArtist]

I saw the name change a few days ago on TV and I wondered what the heck was wrong with them. I don't have any emotional investment in what they call it, but it just didn't make any sense to me. Besides when I see SyFy, my brain translates it to Sif-ee (short i, long ee), not Si Fi (two long i's). Still, they've probably spent a fortune changing it, so I doubt they'll change it back any time soon.

[mollymac]

I do not like Sy Fy.

[tc2598]

Okay, super politely: Why does it matter what a network calls itself?

[AdmNaismith]

They cannot copyright 'Sci Fi', and use that as a brand (but I don't see why the couldn't copyright 'The SciFi Channel').

Also, as the trend is to shorter acronym-ish cable channel names.

As other channels move away from the programming they started with and go to almost exclusively reality-based programming, they had to change. We are no longer learning anything from 'The Learning Channel', so being the generic TLC makes sense for them.
Whereas SciFi still shows actual science fiction (even as they try to pass fantasy, horror, and ghost chasing off as somehow related).

Sci Fi was already a shorthand for more pulpy aspects of the genre. I see SyFy as an ugly transformation of an already tarnished moniker.

[mcc777c2]

Worst name change/rebranding since "New Coke". I hope the rebranding and the executives that signed off on SyFy share the same fate.

[skantea]

The purpose of re-branding is to re-introduce the brand.
Which doesn't necessarily mean gaining new viewers (although that's good) but also regaining the viewers that have gotten distracted by all the other choices.
Therefore getting those lost viewers to think that something big has changed will bring them back in for a peek.
The key of course is to have a great line-up that will keep them watching. If they can do that, then the name change will have been worth it.

Stay tuned for the numbers.

[BN2112]

Doesn't matter what they call it, my wife will still be addicted to that snooze-fest Ghost Hunters show while I keep trying to figure that one out. But then again she doesn't get Family Guy so that makes us even.

[mbaty]

I think they changed it because SciFi is a genre, and they couldn't brand it or something. Hence the SyFy. I like a lot of their shows: Dr. Who, Battlestar, Stargate, Warehouse 13 (looks promising, liked the pilot.)

[kagenin]

In raver lingo, getting "hyphy" (sounds like "hi-fi") refers to taking MDMA or other illicit substances. So maybe this can all be blamed on some bad Ecstasy tabs?

Or maybe they think that "Y" is the new "X" (because adding an "X" to something makes it "extreme"... or something).

Either way, Sy Fy is stupid.

[greylox]

**Two comments: sigh. Fie!

Did I win?

[ROFLMAO]

what I've noticed is that all their "original movies" are basically interchangeable, and seem to all be written by the same person.
Imagine a premise like "Raptor Island" - a group of commandos are stranded on an island with velociraptors. Sounds exciting? No. The SyFy treatment kicks in... first, cheesy dialog between the soldiers, one of whom (the brooding hero) is trying to atone for some past misdeeds, while another is the archetypal bad boy, and perhaps a feisty female soldier or scientist. Next, really bad CGI effects so the dinosaurs are completely non-scary. Lastly, have the soldiers point their guns at the raptors, allow about 30 seconds of machine gun fire sounds, then have them run away, swap some more corny dialog, then repeat until the end of the movie. The bad boy sometimes gets to turn good and do a last heroic machine gun blast allowing the rest to escape.... imagine a group of little boys making machine gun sounds and you get the general mentality that SyFy seems to be aiming at.

I only tolerate SyFy for Doctor Who and Eureka.

[tc2598]

The monster flicks are pretty much for kids who like monster flicks and can't really detect dumb yet.

Doctor Who is also on BBC America, and it's a season ahead of the SyFy.

Eureka is pretty good this year.

[IndyReader]

You all know that they came out with this decision to re-brand Sci Fi to Sy Fy right around April Fools Day? I certainly thought they were joking.