The future for Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming ambitions is more Max than HBO. The media giant announced last week it would drop the HBO name as it welcomes a slew of Discovery reality content, as well as new originals, including a seven-season “Harry Potter” series.

“As successful as [HBO] has been, it also has audiences that love it and audiences that are not interested in it,” Patrizio Spagnoletto, global chief marketing officer of streaming at Warner Bros. Discovery, told Ad Age. “By moving to Max, we wanted to clearly signal a change in the broadening and the breadth of the content, though the quality stays the same.”

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The decision to scrap HBO from the name of its streaming service signals both the desire to preserve the HBO brand name, while also reintroducing audiences who may have been averse to the mature content of HBO to the streaming platform.

The name game

Out of the two words that formed the HBO Max title, “HBO” held high brand recognition and loyalty while “Max” originally seemed a qualifier to “HBO,” in the way that Disney, Paramount, Apple TV and AMC added “+” to their brand names to signal a premium experience on their streaming platforms. But the pivot to “Max” by itself also suggests faith that the streamer’s former title had built recognition of its own. 

“There is a ton of equity that is built in HBO,” said Spagnoletto. “We think we are able now to attract bigger audiences for premium content without sacrificing and, more importantly, preserving and privileging the HBO brand.”

The threats to diluting the HBO name, which has long represented the upper echelons of TV viewership, include the addition of programming from Discovery archives, such as “90 Day Fiance” and home renovation series from Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Magnolia Network. There’s also a growing library of children’s content and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav teased at the Max reveal event last week that live news and sports will also be coming to the platform. 

In research ahead of Max’s rebrand, Spagnoletto said the company found users already within the HBO Max ecosystem were able to be shepherded into HBO Max’s non-HBO content. But for prospective subscribers, “HBO Max as a brand was not able to break through.”

“That was a pretty telling piece of data for us, that after three years and multiple campaigns for prospects, HBO and the name still stood for something whether they liked it or not,” said Spagnoletto.

Although Spagnoletto’s market data suggested a negative connotation for the HBO name with certain audiences, the overall risk of starting from scratch with Max may outweigh the reward, said Matt Voda, CEO of marketing analytics company OptiMine.

“The risk is that they create more confusion and they create a need to have to invest a lot more to create a brand around something new that nobody knows about,” said Voda. 

While compelling additions to the streamer is a good thing, potentially making it confusing for consumers to access the platform when it swaps app logos or changes access points on CTV platforms would be difficult to overcome, said Voda. The CEO added that while Max is reacting to the same difficult market conditions as its competitive streamers by bidding for new subscribers with a beefed-up offering, “I don’t think it had to trigger a rebrand to do it.”

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However, some think the pivot to a broad, unbranded platform could pay off for Max. Timothy Calkins, brand consultant and professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, said the streamer’s top priority has become ranking high enough with consumers so not to get chopped when subscription budgets tighten.

While Calkins said HBO will remain a critical element in Max’s appeal, which the streamer will capitalize on with an HBO tab in its menu, it’s crucial for Warner Bros. Discovery to broaden the appeal of its service to stay competitive in the streaming wars.

“The HBO brand is hugely important, it’s a powerful brand, it’s got great history behind it and it does stand for something distinctive,” said Calkins. “Protecting that brand is incredibly important, and this move recognizes that if you broaden out HBO and make it apply to everything, you weaken that brand.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Disney+, said Calkins, pointing out that Warner Bros. Discovery has chosen to preserve the origins of HBO in its named change. Disney+, however, has expanded its purview to “broaden that brand—Disney was once all about family-friendly, and now it’s broadened that out and expanded the programming of what that stands for.”

Similarly, Voda said Disney’s streaming strategy is one to aspire to, as “they haven’t changed the branding, they’ve been consistent and they’ve been able to add services and product offerings under that umbrella brand without confusing consumers.”

But bolstering the Max brand to the height of Disney will not be a quick task.

“More than hope, my job—in the next months and quarters and years—is we’ll sit back and say, ‘Well, of course it’s Max. What else would it be?’” said Spagnoletto. “It’s like, ‘Of course, it’s Coca-Cola,’ or, ‘Of course, it’s Amazon,’ or Hulu for that matter. Most people didn’t even know what it meant, and still don’t know what it means other than the name of the service. It just takes time to build a brand and we have all the intent, the conviction and the resources to do that.”

The one to watch

Max’s debut marketing campaign is aimed at the streamer’s new something-for-everyone mentality. While the hero spot doesn’t differ greatly from HBO Max’s original launch campaign (emotive music paired with a sizzle of popular franchises), its variants across video and other media appear more targeted. The tagline, “the one the watch,” is paired with various moods and programming meant to distill the scope of content available on Max, much of which is not associated with HBO.

Spagnoletto said that the campaign, which spans TV, digital, out-of-home and radio, will roll out in phases—the initial announcement, followed by talent-hosted spots and then a launch campaign. Each phase will have multiple pieces of creative that, while all running nationally, may favor certain audience demographics or geographic markets per Warner Bros. Discovery’s research.

“The key is to maintain the link between HBO and Max, even as they do it in a somewhat different way,” advised Calkins. “That is incredibly important because that’s the most vibrant part of that world. They’ve got to make sure that HBO continues to have fabulous content and to do what it does, and use that as a hook to help Max get off the ground.”

The prospect of reeducating audiences is not new for HBO. The seeming jumble of brand identities and apps mirrors the streamer’s challenges during its original launch nearly three years ago to the day. At that time, the premium cable network had a roster of branded apps including HBO Go and HBO Now.

Warner Media, which at the time was owned by AT&T, hit 4.1 million subscribers one month after it launched, according to the telecom’s 2020 second quarter earnings report. But the number was notably hampered by confusion over how to sign up for the app—with many existing HBO subscribers unaware they even had access. On the earnings call, the combined total of HBO’s cable channel and HBO Max subscribers was 36.3 million.

To be sure, HBO Max has grown significantly. The combined subscriber base of HBO Max and Discovery+ reached 96.1 million in the most recent quarter. But with losses in its direct-to-consumer segment totaling nearly $2.7 billion, the company is attempting to cast a wider net with its rebrand to Max.

“Consumers are overloaded,” said JB Perrette, CEO and president of global streaming and games at Warner Bros. Discovery, during the Max unveiling. “So, in this era of peak confusion, we’re trying to simplify and improve the experience for consumers.”