About a month ago, Warner Bros. Discovery dropped a bolt out of the blue (literally). In just three years of launching HBO Max, the streaming service was slated for a rebrand – the marque would redress to Max, the signature purple logo color would be etiolated to the stereotypical deep blue, and the platform would suffix a new tagline. Critics have condemned and riddled HBO Max’s rebrand blunder as a branding misstep.
The cable television company launched in 1972 and is the country’s longest-continuously operating subscription service today. HBO and its signature purple hearkens one back to lauded shows like The Sopranos, Last Week Tonight, Euphoria, Succession and the unmissable edgy hit Game of Thrones. They interpolated Warner Bros. Discovery as an indispensable cultural zeitgeist – one look at the name and there’s a mighty chance that whatever is streaming, would be worth watching.
On May 23, HBO Max is becoming Max — The One To Watch for all of HBO, hit series, movies, reality, and more. #StreamOnMax pic.twitter.com/GYJ4yJtkhG
— Max (@StreamOnMax) April 12, 2023
The supposedly ‘savvy’ marketing move of rebranding to Max, debuted this week and had its logo set in a new typeface called Max Sans (coincidental much?).
The new almost-too-bewildering-to-believe tagline takes the icing on the cake – “the one to watch for HBO”. A glaring ode to the show Friends maybe, but if the intention behind the paean was to coddle ‘this is where you can watch HBO’, why divest off to not retain the iconic name and its popular assets?
What Went Wrong With The HBO Max Rebrand?
People keep recurring to brands for years, or even generations because of a promise of enduring a specific quality. HBO stood for Home Box Office and the audience was hooked to their beloved shows – a ticket that counts.
The legacy media company has been sailing in perilous waters since its days as Time Warner under a maligned era of AT&T. After taking over the 99-year-old Warner Bros. Studios in 2022 for $43 billion, Discovery CEO David Zaslav initiated numerous cost-saving strategies and layoffs. The surmountable debt of $50 billion paraded profligate spending of the past.
HBO Max’s original launch did not curry a totem of a successful one for an array of reasons, which had underwhelmed investors and consumers alike – vociferously for that matter.
Whilst not considering streaming as its only priority, Zaslav had made decisions to focus on generating billions in cash flow – by concluding show runs that already aired and in the midst of their storylines, earning the ire of the creative community. Series like ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ and ‘Westworld’ were excised from HBO Max.
Eventually, the growing pains were worked out and the tattered reputation was restored back to its glory. HBO had attained a stamp of quality in the game of original content. One could say that they were the bellwether in the current streaming era of Netflix, Amazon or Apple.
It’s not TV; it’s HBO.
Purple was the perfect color too. HBO’s iconic mix of black and white in its logo was classic but purple aligned HBO Max with royal, acclaim and elite. Why did they change it to industry-mainstream blue?
When the essence of the brand is taken away from its name, it presages two things: one, Max will reflect on Warner Bros. Discovery’s expanded content and two, it will erase HBO’s hard-merited cachet.
HBO Max Rebrand Blunders: Impact Of Warner Bros. Discovery Rebranding
The hidden spear of the triumph of the streaming platform HBO Max showed its competitive edge in the market within a week of its launch. It went to the market with an exhaustive catalog of content stretching back decades. This content, the intellectual property (IP) is its key strength.
“HBO took four decades of prestige and just casually tossed it into a dump, lit a match, and even cheered as it burned.”
Maybe, if you harbor Superman, Friends and the universe of Harry Potter under your shade, it can give you an opportunity or more of ‘do-overs’.
The public outcry to HBO Max’s rebranding blunder was not limited to just one, but multiple brands of Warner Bros. Discovery. Subscribers had started to lose trust and patience in the brand, something that’s challenging to rebuild.
The idea of taking ‘HBO’ out of the equation is a typical blunder, although many argue it was necessary to maintain the elite dignity of the brand by differentiating between HBO and MAX.
“Dropping HBO from the name is cementing that we’re not just home to premium content, but for anything you want to watch. By moving to Max, we wanted to signal a change in the broadening of the content clearly, though the quality remains the same.”
Max will be primed to provide more than 35000 hours of streaming, which is more than double what was available on HBO Max. Warner Bros. Discovery has also indicated a smoother video playback experience and some fixes to its UX with simplified navigation.
Can HBO Max’s Rebranding Misstep Restore The Original Glory?
An analysis of HBO Max’s branding misstep shows that many believe the move of writing off many HBO programs has negatively impacted WBD and lowered Max’s value. Crowded landscapes laden with confused customers, can drop the channel in less than a minute.
The inclusion of HBO in the original title was a prestigious and strategic move of helping with brand recognition in the transition but had to end somewhere. Max could not be expected to milk HBO’s sparkling reputation as one of the best storytellers of television to be associated with shows like 90 Day Fiancé and Dr Pimple Popper.
There’s no guarantee of their new leadership messing up again and HBO/Max/Warner Bros. Discovery could be faulted for their decisions too. But they will not fall off their glory so soon – ‘Max’ isn’t going to stop viewers from watching the Succession or looking forward to the return of ‘The Last Of Us’.
Disney has proven to rebrand with Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar’s glorious success. HBO pioneered same-day blockbuster releases and free previews and was the first channel to stream by satellite. But just as investors feel comfortable with the space WBD is in, the goals are set anew.
If Max can continue to deliver a string of knockout storytelling, there’s a hope of saving it from the rebranding blunder. Maybe like Harley Davidson and Coca-Cola, WBD will persevere through. Streaming is a dynamic field that will continue to be ever-evolving. HBO Max’s rebranding criticism represents that Warner Bros. Discovery has to prove its worth – and it has a long way to go, testing the fan’s patience.
