New Brand Identity for the Sci-Fi Channel

On July 7th, NBC Universal will be rolling out a new brand identity for its cable television property, the Sci-Fi Channel. The new look is shown at left.

Home to such popular shows as Ghost Hunters, Primeval, Moonlight and Equilibrium, the channel has a relatively small but loyal audience. While I would love to hear from some of them to get their reactions... I'm going out on a limb and predicting that no one's going to be too fond of the new identity for the Sci-Fi brand.

First off, humans are usually fairly resistant to change. 99% of the time we'll take the old. (Thank you very much.)

Secondly, and more troubling to me, is the fact that the new logotype has no connotation of anything scientific, nothing that says science fiction. Four rather plain, very round-ish letters. In white. Blandsville.

And finally, while I'm ranting, I cannot quite come to terms with how the new brand name comes across phonetically. Does anyone hear: "Siffy" or perhaps "Sife-E?" Somewhere between the two "y's" and the lowercase "f" everything breaks down. The mini Web site that explains the new branding approach is even all jacked up.

On a positive note--and for the sake of balance--I will say that the new positioning statement is pretty good. It's an action-oriented invitation to me to imagine. I like that. With the word "Greater," they are hinting at some bigger, better things to come. That sounds good and promising, also.

Let's hope Sci-Fi, or Siffy, lives up to its promise ... and hope that the programming is better than the logo design work. Marketing geniuses and Sci-Fi brand evangelists, please tell us (post a comment) if your feelings are contrary.

Was Obama a Marketing Genius?

Now that the political campaign dust has settled, let's take an inside look at the Barack Obama presidential campaign, from a marketing perspective. One of the fundamental aspects of a great marketing campaign is having a multi-faceted, layered marketing plan. A great marketing plan synthesizes and integrates several tactical layers. Let's take a look at what the Obama campaign implemented in the 2008 Presidential election:


1- A consistency of brand - the Obama identity, which was carried out with superb consistency (see below):











2- An effective positioning of the brand - "Hope." It struck an emotional chord. It conveyed his unique selling proposition (USP). It was available. He owned it.



3- Rich, fully developed back story, underneath it all - Obama's two books: The Audacity of Hope; Dreams from My Father. These works told the story in full detail.



4- Web - an unquestionably superb Web site



5- Grassroots engagement - how many yard signs, T-shirts and bumpers stickers did you see?



6- Earned media - 597,622 hits on Google's News search, as depicted on the Google Trends graphic below:











7- Advertising - did anyone see the Obama infomercial during election week?



8 - Social networking - the fact that Obama raised more money in the month of February 2008 than was raised ever before in any political campaign says it all. During that same month, he attended zero fundraiser events. In the words of his opposing campaign manager, "When Obama hit 1 million registered supporters on his Facebook group, we knew that the game had been changed ...that it was over," speaks volumes.



Regardless of whom you voted for, it is hard to dispute the fact that this was a genius marketing campaign. I say this in no way to diminish the man's success, his beliefs, his tactics ... or the outcome. Congratulations, President-Elect Obama!

Wal-Mart's New Brand Icon

Has anyone noticed the new symbol that Wal-Mart has begun using lately? And, oh by the way, it's now Walmart, instead of Wal-Mart. They dropped the hypen.

It's that small yellowish starburst "thingy" (shown in the image at left). I'll refer to it as their brand icon. And while it does follow the old Walmart star with some degree of connection (which is good), I am not loving the design.

Instantly when I saw it, the icon reminded me of another brand. It took about 2.5 seconds for my brain to recall the resemblance.

It quickly reminded me of the Holiday Inn brand. The iconography is pretty similar. The new Walmart starburst icon suggests the old Holiday Inn icon--at least in my brain it does.

Now, I'm not saying that the two icons are identical. They're not. But if I thought it, there's bound to be 10,000 others who will have the same impression. That's not good.

When you have a budget the magnitude of Walmart's, maybe you just assume that you can erase and overcome those other-brand associations through the sheer number of impressions. It possible, but it's an expensive proposition. It would have been better to design something more unique.

Walmart will spend tens of millions to re-brand the starburst symbol in our brains, reprogramming us through visual repetitions so that some time in the future a yellowish-gold starburst object (one blogger referred to it as a "cat butt") will make us think primarily of Walmart. Gee, I can hardly wait. [sarcasm]

Are any marketing geniuses out there more excited about this than I am?