Wednesday, September 1, 2010

SciFi or Syfy

As some of you may be aware, the SciFi channel was re-branded last year as Syfy. The intent behind the move was, according to the executives of the channel, to distance the content from the negative preconceptions that are attached to the term Science Fiction. Put another way, they felt that SciFi was too "geeky". What do you all think about the re-branding effort? Was it a deliberate slap in the face to the fan community or a reasonable marketing move? Do you believe that this had any effect on public opinion at all?

7 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Personally it just annoys me because now I feel as if its spelled wrong. I don't think that this makes it less geeky either. I could also see how hard-core scifi fans would take this as a slap in the face.

On another level, spell check accepts "scifi" as a word, but not "syfy". That's good enough for me!!

Jordan said...

My inner grammar Nazi really dislikes it. Also I don't see the point. Clever marketing move? How did it change anything? I don't think a new crowd of people just magically decided that "Syfy" was cooler than "SciFi," and the old crowd probably just got annoyed and a little confused. Geeks watch that channel, so who cares if it has a geeky name?

Katy said...

Doesn't make any difference to me. Yeah it bugged me a little at first and I was a bit confused because I'm slow and blonde (I thought they made a new channel entirely). At this point, I say who cares? The same cool stuff comes on the channel and that's all that matters to me. The History Channel changed to just History. That irritates me more than SyFy because you can't say "I'm watching History". That just doesn't make sense. You're watching the history channel. Sorry...totally irrelevant tangent :)

John Harris said...

The name change just goes along with the programming change, really. I mean, I doubt a lot of research went into how people interpret SciFi and Syfy. As far as I'm concerned, the new name is "geekier" than the original. But as the channel has grown and changed, I guess they felt the need to almost symbolically change their name as well (they aren't fooling anyone).

Bailey Carpenter said...

I just don't think changing the name really made a difference. I will watch the occasional "Syfy" channel program/movie if it interests me, but I in no way based that viewing decision on what the name of the channel was. Personally, I acknowledged the difference and honestly wondered if it was some kind of new slang/style alive in well in some sort of science fiction conventions or something. As a Public Relations major, I can honestly say that this venture was just another random marketing change that is not entirely understood by "Scfy's" public, which is probably not a good thing.

Drew said...

Yea, I can't say that the change made any impact on me at all. However, from what I do know about advertising and marketing, I'm willing to bet that the marketing department over at the network spent a nice long amount of time deciding what the new name should be and testing it and all of that. The general ambivalence on here has to make you wonder whether it was worth it.

Caleb Weeks said...

I honestly think that this had no effect on the public opinion at all. Just because a company changes its logo doesn't necessarily mean that the audience will change. Anyways, I think the new logo looks more sleek.