Historical past of HBO Max’s Seemingly Infinite Rebrand Journey

This newest rebrand is WBD’s clearest sign but that it is not making an attempt to cope with Netflix and is as an alternative prioritizing profitability.

WBD content material chief Casey Bloys stated placing the HBO model entrance and middle “much better represents our present shopper proposition,” and positions its content material as differentiated and helpful.

HBO’s three letters stand for high-quality, status programming, stated Dan Inexperienced, a professor and the director of leisure trade administration at Carnegie Mellon College.

“It is laborious to get consideration, and HBO Max — you already know what you are getting,” Inexperienced stated.

Nonetheless, branding veteran Rosica stated this transfer wasn’t essential — and will backfire.

Rosica stated Max already had excessive model consciousness, particularly amongst youthful audiences. Confusion may additionally emerge, as some customers might surprise if actuality TV reveals from Discovery are going away, or if costs are altering.

“A number of questions will come up that basically could be prevented,” Rosica stated.

Some advert execs stated they doubted the rebrand would make a distinction both manner.

Mike McHale of Noble Individuals stated advertisements on WBD’s streamer are nonetheless too costly in comparison with its friends, given it has an viewers that he thinks is reachable elsewhere.

“Individuals who watch ‘The Sopranos’ — they in all probability additionally watch ‘The Workplace.’ There is not an unique viewers of individuals I really feel like I am lacking once I depart them off buys,” McHale stated.

It doesn’t matter what WBD calls its streamer, Thaler identified that it will not have the ability to retroactively change shortcut buttons on Roku remotes. A lot of them nonetheless say “HBO Max” — albeit now within the fallacious shade.