Bender Helper Impact

I will freely admit that I am a fan of reality television. One of my favorite shows – “So You Think You Can Dance” (often referred to as “SYTYCD”) is currently on the air and, since I have a dance background, it is a show to which I can relate. 

Now in its seventh season, the producers decided to reinvent the series this summer through some major changes to the competition format: introducing a Top 11 contestant group instead of a Top 20, and pairing contestants with “All Star” dancers from past seasons instead of with each other. These changes were first announced to the public and the show’s fans via Executive Producer/Judge Nigel Lythgoe’s Twitter page – thus providing yet more confirmation that traditional media will never be the same. From there, many media outlets picked up the news and the blogs/twitter/message boards started buzzing.

According to “Effective Public Relations” by Scott M. Cutlip, Allen H. Center, and Glen M. Broom, “public relations” is defined as:

[T]he management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends.

The SYTYCD organization was able to reach a large percentage of its public directly through Producer Lythgoe’s followers on Twitter (currently 41,304). And, since Twitter is a two-way communication device, the show’s fans had an opportunity to Tweet their opinions back to Lythgoe – allowing for instant reaction/feedback from viewers.

Since I have been a fan for the past six seasons, when I first heard about the new format, I was concerned that the show might be negatively affected, though I was excited that some of my favorite dancers from past seasons would be returning to perform. As a publicist, however, I understand that rebranding, or reinventing, is often supported by a strategic public relations campaign, and can be the “go to” approach when a change is needed for a brand. Similarly, this attempt to rework the SYTYCD format is designed to freshen up a Summer show that tried a Fall time slot last year, and fell flat.

At first, it seemed that many people were expressing similar concerns to mine, but – after the first two weeks of competition – I am pleased to say that I think the changes the producers made to the show are going to work. In my opinion, this season had the strongest first week of competition in the show’s history. Rebranding and reinvention can sometimes be a risk if taken so far that the public can no longer recognize or relate to the original property. In this instance, it appears that the show will benefit from the changes made for Season 7.