A Sci-Fi Marketing Nightmare for the Recession

I am a fly on the wall at a meeting at the Sci-Fi Channel. The branding agency is explaining why the station should change the name that has built its brand for the past 16 years to SyFy.

The Agency said:

And now, our presentation on why the Sci-Fi Channel needs to spend a gazillion dollars to change its name to SyFy

1- SyFy is more than an unintelligible word. It creates an ownable and extendable brand for the future - it's in the press release!
2- Since we've removed "Channel" from the name, you will no longer need to associate with your outre core product, television.
3- The names are phonetically identical so all you have to do is spend a gazillion dollars changing all your stationary, business cards, advertising, signage, trade show booths, uniforms, tsotchkes, employee IDs - have we left out anything you need to change?
4- Your new slogan "Imagine greater" will confuse anyone who is not confounded by the nonsense word, SyFy, which is also non-spellable.
5- We're in a recession. This is a great time to spend a lot of money on meaningless froufrou. Austerity is for sissies!
6- Our core audience can view trying to find us online as a new and surreal voyage - they love that!
7- To make sure nobody can find your online, "An aggressive trade marketing campaign will kick off this spring. scifi.com will assume the URL syfy.com at that time."
8- Our agency needs the money.

Any questions?

Heh, OUCH!
That's why we can't wait until your next post.
Kiss!
AB

The fact that the two names are phonetically identical but with the new name they would have to spend millions to get everything with their name on it changed is just ridiculous. I think Sci-Fi has been working great all these years so why bring up the trouble of this huge spending when you aren't even sure it will help improve the brand itself? This move would create much more stress than improvements.

So true!

May I add #9:

Spelling and grammatical rules are for wusses.

Repositioning your company can be a dangerous path to go down. Repositioning can be confusing to consumers and often times brands end up losing their recognition instead of increasing recognition or market share. Number 5 on the list above is like a blinking light to me. We are in a recession. Very few companies have extra dollars to throw around especially on a repositioning campaign where the odds are often against you. I think that or Sci-Fi, not sure which to use at this moment in time, will have to do a lot of promotional work to make sure that consumers are aware of the brand image change. I will be interested to see how successful they are...

This is the biggest f/up since new coke.

These people should stop diddling themselves and find the next BSG. SciFi was good enough for Asimov.

Who are these dickheads?

Think this is one of the dumbest moves in a long time. I wonder if this will go the path of Tropicana's rebrand. The agency thought it was brilliant -- the consumers, not so much. How much did that mistake cost.