It's Official, The SciFi Channel is now The SyFy Channel, a List of Great Name Changes/Re-branding

So today I heard the news that The SciFi Channel has changed its name to The SyFy Channel.  Somehow this makes sense to someone, just not me.  I have seen it time and time again in the world of advertising where brands change for no apparent reason.  Looking back I have decided to share some of the great events in re-branding that have happened over the past few decades.

1.  Kentucky Fried Chicken.  We all know the Colonel and his herbs and spices.  Did you know that at one point when faced with the negative press fried foods had they tried changing their name to Kentucky Grilled Chicken?  It's true.  In fact they are no longer officially Kentucky Fried Chicken, they are KFC now.

2.  New Coke.  Who can forget the wonders of New Coke.  The time when every Coke executive must have been on coke.  They actually scrapped the classic formula to replace it with something that tasted like Pepsi left out in the sun on a hot day.  Yes, it was that bad.  Now we have Coke Classic, the re-branded original, and New Coke became Coke II until its none to early demise.

3.  Pizza Hut is changing their name, or are they?  Some stores have dropped the classic Pizza Hut signs and replaced them with ones that say The Hut.  The boxes have changed too.  Does that mean their name is changing?  Not according to the Pizza Hut execs, at least for now.  Would you want to order from The Hut?

4.  Geo.  How was Geo a re-brand?  Well, all the Geos were actually cars made by other companies.  The Geo Prizm was a re-branded Toyota Corolla.  The Metro was a re-branded Suzuki, same with the Tracker.  Don't remember who made the convertible.  In fact GM celebrated this fact in their ads of the day.  Eventually Geo was done away with and the foreign brands became Chevys and eventually disappeared.  Or did they?  The Pontiac Vibe is a re-branded Toyota Matrix. 

5.  The Ford Taurus.  Do you remember the Ford 500?  Is so you are one of the few.  Ford decided to replace its faltering Taurus brand with the Ford 500 to increase sales.  The problem, everyone knew the Taurus and no one knew the 500.  Ford renamed the 500 the Taurus.

6.  FedEx.  Did you know they were once Federal Express?

7.  Datsun.  Whoever can remember a Datsun raise your hands.  They were a nice new brand from Japan that slowly took off and was successful.  What most people didn't know was that a Japanese company called Nissan used the name Datsun for all their passenger cars and did so in the US in part to distance themselves from the Nissan of WWII.  Then when the succeded they changed the name to Nissan.  Why would they do that when they had spent millions making Datsun a common name in the US?  I have no idea.

Finally while it is not a brand name change it is a packaging change that had terrible results.  Behold the classic Tropicana Orange Juice container.

Now look at their new packaging

When they made that change people stopped buying in droves.  They all thought it was the generic store brand and could not find the Tropicana they wanted.  Tropicana responded with this new packaging.

Oh well, everything old is new again.  As you can see name changes and brand re-imagining sometimes works and sometimes does not.  But the risk is extreme as you try to shed an old name for a new one.  All the money, time, and effort you have invested in the old brand is gone, and you need to start over on a fresh name.  SyFy sounds like the original so it should go fairly easy, just as it has for many television networks out there such as The Nashville Network, no wait I mean The National Network, nope I mean Spike... for now.  Lets see what this name change does for or to SciFi/SyFy.  Only time will tell.

-Uncle Walter

Comments

[dave]

I interpret the Pizza Hut quasi-rebranding as an attempt to make the name more compatible with a focus on non-pizza offerings -- e.g. they seem to be pushing their pastas these days. Maybe they are experimenting with the idea of ceasing to be a pizza-centric restaurant.

[Uncle Walter]

I think you are right on the money with that assessment. What I find most puzzling is Pizza Hut's lack of communication or commitment about the change.

[dave]

Yeah. But here's an idea: the main reason to publicly announce a change is to make sure that people who like the old brand know that they should now buy the new brand. But if you're going to make the shift gradually, then people will figure that out on their own. And the gradual approach allows you to avoid some of the downsides of a public announcement: if there's no announcement, you aren't publicly committed to the new name, so you can reverse course if it's not working; a gradual change is less jarring for your most loyal customers; and a public announcement would provide an occasion for journalists to speculate that your business is in trouble.

[Uncle Walter]

The problem with that solution is that many consumers will assume that "The Hut" is a new franchise or even worse a Pizza Hut knock off. Customers are fickle creatures and they can be very skittish when change occurs. If the change was announced as a test change to the local media, it would facilitate acceptance and properly gauge the success rate of the change. Abrupt changes to a few stores can create a negative backlash to the brand as a whole.