Max is returning to the name it had when it launched in 2020: HBO Max.
The rebrand will take place this summer, Warner Bros. Discovery revealed Wednesday at its upfront presentation to advertisers in New York. Executives cited recent momentum, with the service adding global markets and 22 million subscribers over the past year, and also a goal to “amplify the uniqueness” of their brand to viewers drowning in an ocean of programming. Hints of the change appeared earlier this spring, as Max’s color scheme changed from blue to dark grey, the second shift since the launch with purple in 2020. The new logo preserves the rounded letters of the original HBO.
“This evolution has also been influenced by changing consumer needs,” JB Perrette, President and CEO of Streaming said. “No consumer today is saying they want more content, but most consumers are saying they want better content.” While the release stopped short of admitting the Max rebrand in 2023 had been a mistake, it called it “a testament to WBD’s willingness to keep boldly iterating its strategy and approach – leaning heavily on consumer data and insights. (Translation: Consumers never fully embraced the Max handle.)
Perrette and Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, assessed the progress in streaming over the past five years and walked ad buyers through the upcoming change. When Bloys made the big reveal, it drew audible laughs and a ripple of applause.
“With the course we are on and strong momentum we are enjoying, we believe HBO Max far better represents our current consumer proposition,” Bloys said. :And it clearly states our implicit promise to deliver content that is recognized as unique and, to steal a line we always said at HBO, worth paying for.”
In an interview with Deadline, Perrette provided more detail about the process behind the name re-change.
“We’ve been iterating on this, both from a content and strategy standpoint for the last two years, ever since we launched, in the positioning of it, in terms of who we are and how we’re different than what others in the marketplace are doing in terms of volume, We’re more about quality and distinction,” he said.
Perrette and Bloys sat down with Zaslav to go though the consumer data.
“And reality is, David said, look, the consumer always tells you whether you’re right or wrong. And in that context, why don’t you go back? That sounds like HBO. Let’s be bold and make the right decision for our business at a moment of great strength,” Perrette said. “David was a great champion of saying, we should go back to including HBO in the brand, because nothing stands for distinction and quality more than HBO.”
Since the close of the $43 billion WarnerMedia-Discovery merger in April 2022, the combined company has made a series of moves in streaming, which has just turned profitable but generates far lower returns than its legacy cable networks. In 2023, the company rebranded HBO Max as Max and added programming from Discovery+, leaving the latter service available as a stand-alone. The company has also experimented with sports and news tiers on Max and has also announced a CNN subscription offering.
Fueled by series like The White Lotus and The Last of Us, HBO has remained core to the appeal of Max, especially internationally. Asked during last week’s quarterly earnings call about the state of HBO, CEO David Zaslav proclaimed it to be “the strongest it has ever been,” likening its pull on viewers to that of NBC in its “Must-See TV” prime.
Rebranding to HBO Max will “amplify the uniqueness that subscribers can expect from the offering,” the press release said.
Zaslav said the growth of HBO Max, which is projected to surpass 150 million subscribers by 2026, is “built around the quality of our programming. Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead.”
Nellie Andreeva conributed to this report.
The post HBO Max Is Back: WBD Rebranding Streamer This Summer appeared first on Deadline.
