Sci-Fi pours pounds 1.5m into ad drive in bid to create new image

The campaign was developed by ad agency HHCL & Partners, with a media

strategy formulated by New PHD subsidiary Rocket.

The campaign will launch this week across the Sci-Fi Channel, radio,

cinema posters and press.

National and local radio advertising campaigns will also run across

Virgin Radio, Emap’s Kiss 100 FM and Capital’s London-based alternative

music station Xfm.

In a bid to pull in a target audience of 16- to 34-year-olds, HHCL has

produced more than 30 executions, each with a different theme. One shows

a child’s hand drawing enthusiastically on an alien’s head. All the

executions will be linked by an orange Sci-Fi Channel-branded

sticker.

Deborah Fitzgerald, marketing and communications director at Sci-Fi,

said: ’We’re working hard to ensure we communicate our brand image

coherently across all points of contact. The most important thing for us

is to deliver the right tone to the audience.’

She continued: ’We want to give science fiction fans permission to like

the genre. The channel and genre is much more about challenging thinking

and producing multi-layered programming than most people think.’

Peter Kirby, creative director at HHCL, said: ’Unlike other stations,

the Sci-Fi Channel expects viewers to take part. For Sci-Fi, television

is their laboratory, so HHCL is demonstrating the effect of the

channel’s thought-provoking programming by creating a little bit of

science fiction in each ad.’