GE's Sci Fi Channel Is Striving To Create Mainstream Footing

By BROOKS BARNES

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Sci Fi is trying to sock it to the competition -- literally.

The cable channel, home to TV shows rooted in the science fiction, horror and fantasy genres, has been on the upswing since becoming part of General Electric's NBC Universal in May 2004. Viewing among adults ages 18 to 49, the group that advertisers pay a premium to reach, is up 12% on rising hits like Sci Fi's "Battlestar Galactica."

Now, to help maintain its growth, Sci Fi President Bonnie Hammer is trying to court a more mainstream audience. To that end, the channel is rolling out a $10 million marketing campaign today for "The Triangle," a miniseries revolving around the Bermuda Triangle. The show's premiere is set for Dec. 5. In keeping with the mystery at the heart of the show, the centerpiece of the campaign involves scattering black socks at gyms and Laundromats across the country.

The socks, some 100,000 in total, won't come as a pair. Instead, employees at gyms and Laundromats will drop a single sock into lockers and laundry baskets. When people return to their clothes, they will find an errant sock emblazoned with the marketing message "nothing stays lost forever" and the address for the show's Web site.

Adam Stotsky, Sci Fi's senior vice president of marketing, says he was looking for a way to spark interest in the drama and the sock idea communicated the central theme in a playful way. "At first glance it seems like a fun, little, trite, guerrilla promotion," he says, "but it really builds on our strategic message of disappearance."

Over the past six months a parade of TV companies have tried to bolster traditional on-air promos with kooky marketing tactics aimed at spurring word-of-mouth and media coverage. Walt Disney's ABC led the way with its successful campaign last year for "Desperate Housewives," an initiative that included stamping the show's logo on dry-cleaning bags.

Some marketing experts see the trend as an unspoken admission that the 30-second commercial -- long the standard way for TV networks to advertise their new shows -- is weakening as a sales tool. In Sci-Fi's case, marketing through undergarments also could strike some consumers as invasive and tacky, says Mark Hughes, author of the 2005 book "Buzzmarketing."

But Mr. Hughes says the growth of on-demand services, videogames and the Internet is adding so much competition for leisure time that TV executives must adopt a wider array of come-ons.

Sci Fi arranged the sock drop by striking deals with chains of gyms and Laundromats. Despite the size of the undertaking, it represents only a fraction of the show's marketing budget. In what is one of the biggest promotional splashes ever undertaken by the channel, Sci Fi also is lavishing outdoor and print ads on "The Triangle" along with a radio campaign centered on a fake "mayday" distress call.

Last night Sci Fi aired an "investigative special" on the Bermuda Triangle produced by NBC News, a unit of Sci Fi's sibling broadcast channel. The special, hosted by "Today" show personality Lester Holt, follows "new leads" on the triangle mystery, justifying the news participation, Sci Fi officials say.

Sci Fi also cut a deal with Yahoo to screen part of the first episode starting Friday and will supply behind-the-scenes snippets to video-enabled cellphones from Verizon Wireless. A direct-mail deal will put "The Triangle" in front of four million customers of Netflix, an online DVD rental service. "The Triangle" tells the story of a shipping magnate whose vessels keep vanishing in the Atlantic Ocean east of Miami. Fed up, he commissions a team of experts to investigate.

Sci Fi decided to give "The Triangle" an advertising blitz on a bet that the Bermuda Triangle mystery will appeal to a wide audience. The channel has turned previous "movie events" into bigger franchises. "Battlestar Galactica" started as a 2003 miniseries and notched such big ratings that Sci Fi picked it up as a series and recently ordered a third season. Could "The Triangle" become a full-blown series? "We're not ruling anything out," Mr. Stotsky says.