Super Autistic » Fuck SyFy… or why I Hate Trendy Rebranding

I can’t stand these desperate attempts that major brands use to try and regain relevancy by hiring a team of marketing geniuses to update their image and make them trendy again. The Science Fiction Channel (now SyFy.com, which they picked up from squatters) isn’t the first, definitely won’t be the last, and I’m only complaining about SyFy because it is the worst I’ve ever seen and what ever unoriginal overpaid marketing assholes they hired do this rebranding can go to hell.

I thought the trendy rebranding process was supposed to take an existing long name and shorten it down so that it’s easier to use in conversation and is more memorable. It makes a difference when I say “Please Federal Express/United Parcel Service my package” than “Please FedEx/UPS my package”. It changes your name into a verb, a task you have to complete and thus stays on your mind. I get why you do it and I’m sure it works on people with half a brain, but what did SciFi to SyFy do? Well, here’s a quote from SyFy’s President that illustrates my point perfectly.

“When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you’d text it,” Mr. Howe said. “It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.” – source tvweek.com

You solidified your choice in changing your fucking name because your focus group came back saying it was how they’d txt it? Who’s txt’ing about watching SciFi anyways? Not to mention, what 18-34 year old male has so much to say in a text message any way that they can’t spare the extra one character to finish SciFi? NBC, (owners of SciFi) you’re out of touch with today’s audience than you think and if you knew anything you’d realize that txt speak is cool to 12yr old girls and 18-34yr old care more about what 4chan and pedo bear are up to before they care about saving one character in a text message.

Good luck in your future endeavors, SyFy, as I don’t understand how changing your name removes the stigma you already have of crappy original programming (your movies are wretched) and mediocre syndication.

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