Warner Bros. Discovery knew that the announcement that he restores “HBO” in the name of his maximum streamer would cause the derision of the attempted front. The media company tried to pre-empt the mockery of the move by publishing a series of self-depreciating memes immediately after having declared that the name HBO Max “new” would return this summer.
But the consensus among the experts of the brand image is that WBD’s decision to resuscitate HBO Max after two years of life as Max was a tacit recognition that she made a great strategic error, that which continues to cause confusion.
“The re -administration of ‘HBO’ is not a brand change – it is a business access march,” said Eric Schiffer, president of the Reputation Management Consultants based in Los Angeles, who provides public relations and brand advice. “Each” max “neon banner is suspended as a scarlet letter of incompetence.” He added, hyperbolically, that “undressing it costs more than certain streamers spend in content”.
By exciting HBO from the name of the streamer in 2023, “Warner Bros. Discovery has destroyed 50 years of prestige, ”said Schiffer. “Now he has to transport this tombstone and pay the funeral twice.”
The latest name change is an attempt to correct one of the biggest escapes from American companies, behind Elon Musk Rehristation Twitter as X, said the Expert of the brand David Aaker, Vice-President of Prophet, a business strategy and marketing consulting company. (Indeed, Max’s account on the social platform formerly known as Twitter was ready for Troll Musk: “Your move, X”, he wrote in an article on Wednesday.) Others compared the previous change of HBO Max to Max to the famous coke marketing debacle of the 80s.
Aaker said that the HBO Max WBD switch to Max in HBO Max was an example of companies underestimating the cost and complexity of the creation of a new brand. “Going from HBO Max to Max was the ultimate to move away from the brand brand, brand loyalty and brand clarity,” he said.
Lisa Kane, director of the Branding Consultancy Siegel + Gale strategy, said that a brand “only goes so far when the commercial strategy is not clear”.
“The changes to HBO Max force the question: what are WBD’s objectives for HBO? Is it to recover their” quality “coat, if this is even possible given the competition?” She said. “If this is not just the brand or the name. They will have to make difficult decisions about the content and the product experience, and be ready to perform against this. ”
The confusion of the brand surrounding HBO in the Kingdom in streaming dates back years, before Warner Bros. Discovery is not formed from the acquisition of Discovery Warnermedia (previously called Time Warner; there is another confusion for you). Originally, the Premium cable introduced the HBO Go service for authenticated paid television subscribers, before launching the autonomous HBO now in 2015 – then trying to clean it with HBO Max.
So what did WBD leaders think when they abandoned HBO, who has long been a premium television programming stallion, named after the service? The justification was double. One had to reflect the range of extended content with the addition of thousands of hours of Discovery Networks content (which, according to a game of company slides at the time, was to help the more female HBO Max HBO). The other reason was to reveal that Max was adapted to the family: the HBO brand means “upset and revolutionary entertainment for adults,” said WBD streaming chief JB Perrette two years ago.
Quick advance for this week, and here is Perrette explaining that HBO Max will not try to be a gargantuan trash which calls on all audiences: “We will continue to focus on what makes us unique – not everything for everyone in a cleaning, but something separate and great for adults and families.”
WBD social and marketing teams have tried to generate good will by making jokes about the return of HBO Max. “These brand annexes try to kill me,” said the @Streammonmax account in its update biography on X. The account also shared a topical Pope Wisecrack with an image of white smoke escaping from Warner Bros. Water Tower noting that “a new brand has been chosen”, and a spin on the peak of Spider-Man with the DC Superman.
