Threat Quality Press

Recently (haha: today, about two hours ago) I read this little piece, about the SciFi Channel turning itself into a global lifestyle brand.

You may have heard of the SciFi Channel. They periodically make moves with themes like “Snakes!” or “Two Snakes!” They also show professional wrestling, and are responsible for the cinematic masterpiece Mansquito, which is about a man with the powers of a mosquito (or! A mosquito with the powers of a man).

SciFi is attempting to increase its world dominance, by expanding its influence past Giant Animals Attack movies and into every aspect of our lives. Here’s a good quote:

“SCI FI Ventures is a major initiative that demonstrates our commitment to building businesses and driving maximum value around the unique relationship we have with our audience,” said Mr. Howe in making the announcement. “The SCI FI brand’s deep connection with its consumers – comprised chiefly of trend-setting innovators – proves that SCI FI has the power and the imagination to reach beyond the television screen to become a total global lifestyle brand.”

Ta-daa.

I appreciate being called a trend-setting innovator, I really do, but, honestly David Howe…have you ever seen anyone that watches SciFi?

The thing of it is is this: let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I am a trend-setting innovator. What does that mean? That means that I think of cool things to do, and those things are so cool and innovative that people who know me decide to do them too. This makes me a) awesome and b) at the forefront of a vast network of less-awesome people.

So, what do you want to do with your global lifestyle brand? Do you want to take the awesome ideas that I come up with, and make them available in the world marketplace (a debatably positive use for globalization)? Or, do you want to convince me to buy your stupid ideas, so that I will spread them out through my network of less awesome people?

Are YOU a trend-setting innovator, David Howe? Are your ideas worth propagating? Or are you a fucking parasite, who is trying to use pre-existing networks of people that trust each other in order to sell your fucking Mansquito t-shirts? I don’t know if you know this, David Howe, but networks like that only work if the people in them trust the people who are higher up to not make them look retarded. The first time you pass out your god-damn Return to Raptor Island Lorenzo Lamas lunchboxes and some poor suckers start buying them is the time that, not only does your merchandise enjoy a brief spike of popularity preceding a catastrophic fall into obscurity, but you also DESTROY THE NETWORKS that you’re trying to use.

It’s what happens when you talk, but don’t listen, David Howe. You don’t end up with good ideas; instead, you find yourself saddled with armfuls of bad ideas (and, because you’re a moron, you don’t know they’re bad ideas) that you then attempt to choke the world with. This is what happens also, whoever is in charge of making someone the president of SciFi, when you put a man in charge who only knows how to manage brands.

To make money with a brand, you must CREATE VALUE FOR THE BRAND. That doesn’t mean spreading it around–that’s how you create AWARENESS of the brand. To create value, you must make something good, or interesting, or worthwhile first.

An analogy: herpes can be spread very easily from person to person. Despite the global popularity of herpes, and an extremely successful campaign of herpes awareness, its billions of carriers remain less than enthusiastic about it.

Anyway, I am hereby exerting my power as a trendsetting innovator and making the following declaration:

Global lifestyle brands are NO LONGER IN.

Do you hear that, world? From now on, the cool thing to do is to be discriminating about everything that you buy, to make sure it is unique and authentic. Purchasing any consumer good that has someone’s brand on it, FROM HENCEFORTH, YEA, AND FOREVER, shall make you lame.

SO SPEAKS BRAAK!

This entry was posted on July 22, 2008 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Braak with tags Braak, News?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.