Syfy Will Live, Despite Your Syphilis Jokes
I’m ready to stick my neck out and say that, as much as Sci Fi Channel devotees derided the network’s planned name change to Syfy, the quirky new name will not die a death akin to what happened to Tropicana’s recently redesigned juice carton. Sorry, my friends, but Syfy will live.
Why? The channel has gone forward with what looks to be a relatively pricey ad campaign that includes buying the cover ads of Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek magazine last week, and also advertising in Jack Myers’ MediaBizBloggers email newsletter (see ad from this morning’s newsletter above). If Sci Fi had any thoughts about pulling the name, surely it would’ve pulled this campaign.
The decision to stick with a name intended to expand the channel’s reach even though many of its long-time viewers hated it (comment on SyFy’s blog above), presents an interesting conundrum for the people at SyFy. As we’ve seen with other consumer firestorms — such as the backlashes against various changes to Facebook — it gets hard to figure out when consumer input should be listened to — and when it shouldn’t. In this case, it looks like corporate thinking prevailed.
More SyFy coverage on BNET Media:
Syfy Lends Itself Not to Sci-Fi, But to Syphilis Jokes
Syfy’s Dave Howe Discusses New Name, But Not Wrestling
Landor Distances Itself from SyFy Name
Catharine P. Taylor has been covering digital media and advertising for almost 15 years and is a frequent speaker at conferences about media and advertising. She posts daily to BNET Media, writes the weekly Social Media Insider column for Mediapost and also has her own advertising blog, Adverganza.com. Follow her on Twitter or subscribe to the BNET Media Twitter feed.
BNET User Analysis