Warner Bros. Discovery knew the announcement that it was restoring “HBO” to the name of its Max streamer would elicit forehead-slapping derision. The media company tried to preempt mockery of the move by posting a slew of self-deprecating memes immediately after it said the “new-ish” HBO Max name would come back this summer.
But the consensus among branding experts is that WBD’s decision to resurrect HBO Max after two years of life as Max was a tacit acknowledgement that it committed a big strategic error, one that continues to cause confusion.
“Re-adding ‘HBO’ isn’t a rebrand — it’s a corporate walk-of-shame,” said Eric Schiffer, chairman of L.A.-based Reputation Management Consultants, which provides celebrity PR and branding consulting. “Every neon ‘Max’ banner hangs like a scarlet letter of incompetence.” He added, hyperbolically, that “stripping it costs more than some streamers spend on content.”
By excising HBO from the streamer’s name in 2023, “Warner Bros. Discovery destroyed 50 years of prestige,” Schiffer said. “Now it has to haul that gravestone back and pay for the funeral twice.”
The latest name change is an attempt to correct one of corporate America’s biggest branding fumbles, behind only to Elon Musk rechristening Twitter as X, said branding expert David Aaker, vice chairman at Prophet, a business strategy and marketing consulting firm. (Indeed, Max’s account on the social platform formerly known as Twitter was all set to troll Musk: “Your move, X,” it wrote in a post Wednesday.) Others have likened the previous change from HBO Max to Max to the famous ’80s New Coke marketing debacle.
Aaker said WBD’s flip-flopping from HBO Max to Max to HBO Max was an example of corporations underestimating the cost and complexity of creating a new brand. “Going from HBO Max to Max was the pinnacle of walking away from brand equity, brand loyalty and brand clarity,” he said.
The brand confusion surrounding HBO in the streaming realm goes back years, before Warner Bros. Discovery was formed from Discovery’s acquisition WarnerMedia (previously called Time Warner; there’s another naming muddle for you). Originally, the premium cabler introduced the HBO Go service for authenticated pay-TV subscribers, before launching the standalone HBO Now in 2015 — and then trying to clean it up with HBO Max.
So what were WBD execs thinking when they dropped HBO, which has long been a gold standard of premium television programming, from the service’s name? The rationale was twofold. One was to reflect the expanded content lineup with the addition of thousands of hours of content from Discovery networks (which, according to a company slide deck at the time, was expected to help the “male-skewing” HBO Max attract more female viewers). The other stated reason was to convey that Max was family-friendly: HBO’s brand stands for “edgy, groundbreaking entertainment for adults,” WBD’s streaming chief JB Perrette said two years ago.
Fast-forward to this week, and here’s Perrette explaining that HBO Max is not going try to be a gargantuan bin that appeals to all audiences: “We will continue to focus on what makes us unique — not everything for everyone in a household, but something distinct and great for adults and families.”
WBD’s social and marketing teams tried to generate goodwill by making jokes about HBO Max’s return. “These rebrands are trying to murder me,” the Stream on Max account said in its updated bio on X. The account also shared a topical pope wisecrack with an image of white smoke billowing from the Warner Bros. Water Tower signaling that “a new brand has been chosen,” and a spin on the Spider-Man pointing meme featuring DC’s Superman.
