The critical and fan reception of Sci Fi's decision to rebrand as SyFy has hardly been the warmest, but that hasn't tempered the nearly 17-year-old science fiction cable network's enthusiasm for its transition. Officially adopting the new name this past Tuesday, SyFy hosted a weeklong free Wi-Fi park just below the NBC Universal-owned channel's headquarters on Rockefeller Plaza.
Pop-up spaces aren't an uncommon sight in the summer—not even in Rockefeller Plaza, which just hosted HSBC's Wimbledon grass court—but what SyFy vice president of brand marketing Blake Callaway and MKG Productions wanted to achieve wasn't as traditional. They wanted a green space that made use of ample grass and foliage to offer an oasis to passersby and the thousands who lunch in and around the plaza every week.
Elements for the park space—which included whimsical features such as massive, half-buried SyFy logos, a car-sized View-Master, and topiary archways—were originally conceived as a brand video. The promotional reel was what SyFy presented to MKG when it recruited the production team to build and design the space.
"Right on the heels of the Wimbledon event that just happened on the plaza, it was really important that we completely redesign the space," said MKG Productions president Maneesh K. Goyal. "We needed to make this a fully functioning park, and that meant bringing in all of the elements, from concessions and Wi-Fi to seating and shaded areas."
Offering all that space up to pedestrians, kind as it might be, isn't without an agenda: SyFy wants to make sure people start to associate the new name and logo with the same product. The heavily branded space included several monitors and projections playing the promotional video that inspired the space, with clips of new and longtime SyFy series.
MKG skirted the potential issue of the reflecting sun by using Dynascan LED displays. "We've worked with Dynascan technology before, and knew we'd want to use it in the park," Goyal said. "Glare makes it difficult to see images outdoors, but the crisp images you can get on the Dynascan aren't affected by that."
The staff of MKG has to strike the park Saturday evening, but SyFy has other plans to continue making New Yorkers familiar with its new moniker. The network will foot the bill for free wireless Internet in Rockefeller Center, Union Square, and Times Square for the next year, and has signed on to sponsor free summer film screenings in Brooklyn Bridge Park and the upcoming Tim Burton retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.
