There's nothing quite as enjoyable as when a corporate entity traipses down the rabbit hole of groupthink and marketing, eventually resulting in some ill-advised attempt at rebranding that goes predictably haywire. Take, for example, the latest developments over at Nickelodeon and the Sci Fi Channel. In an attempt to cater to the tween market, Nick has revealed plans to release a older, sluttier Dora The Explorer doll, which has unsurprisingly been met with general disdain across the board (you can add me to the "Anti" camp after having seen a ten year old girl at Coscto yesterday sporting whorish lipstick and a fashion ensemble to match).
Meanwhile, the Sci Fi Channel has decided to shake things up as well. Come June, the network won't be known as Sci Fi, but as... Syfy. That one just gets a big scratching head from me. I understand some of the thought process behind changing the name — Syfy can be trademarked, the name isn't as stringently tied to the Sci Fi genre, etc. — but seriously, it just reeks of the sort of corporate decision making that stems from countless hours of mind numbing marketing powwows and glossy presentations; the kind that eventually erode away any sense of what's good or bad or mildly intriguing. Maybe that's why it's a bit ironic that the network's new slogan is "Imagine Greater." At this point, the channel should either stay as Sci Fi or change the name completely. Opting for a bizarre misspelling, however, just seems odd. If anything, it appears oddly French. I might be inclined to think "Syfy" is the name of some Parisian pharmacy. "Need to pick up some deodorant? Oh yeah, just drop by the Syfy on St. Germain. And get me some contact solution while you're there. MERCI."
So now I ask you: which rebranding is worse? Dora or Syfy?
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The Dora needs some work and definitely needs a lot of primer on what Mattel is doing with her new older look. From what I read they are basically aging her to hold onto their base...think moving from Babysitter's Club to Sweet Valley High (and yes I am dating myself with those references). They just need to do a ton of PR and education campaigns. But the SciFi/SYFY is just creepy weird and I don't know they can educate themselves out of that mess
"Syfy" is definitely worse. Was I the only one completely bugged out when National Geographic first started calling themselves NAT-GEO?
Syfy makes me think of an abbreviation for an STD: Syfylys.
the fact that they are spelling it "Syfy" to cutesy up their image makes me think they should also misspell their slogan as "imagine grater".
The Syfy is the worse! That is just stupid. I don't think Dora looks that bad what are people all up in arms over it for? She looks cute
The problem with Dora is that it is geared for a 2 to 4 year old audience. My 3 year old runs around all day singing her damned songs! Its really cute. No really.
Just changing the graphics is not going to attract the older kids... Have you ever sat through an episode? Seen one, seen them all. They would have to re-tool the entire show to attract the older kids and in the process, loose their [core] pre-school audience.
I read that the Dora cartoon will remain unchanged -- it will continue to feature the shorter, dumpier Dora.
The next step is people will name their newborn daughters "Syfy" so they can grow up all the men named "Espn."
The Dora change is a definite jump the shark move. Kind of like when Steve left Blue's Clues, the show was decent with Joe and then they retooled parts of the show and it lost it's charm. The official jump the shark was when Blue turned into a puppet to talk in Blue's room.
The SyFy logo looked at first glance like Syufy theaters were making a come back. =oP