The Death of HBO: "The king is dead, long live the king"

One of the problems for the current spate of repositioning and rebranding by digital streaming companies or any broadcast company for that matter, is getting to grips with constantly shifting technology and the expectations of customers and audiences on what their brand should deliver.

Most strategists insist brands should be simple and simply expressed, as do most customers but not so the heads of WarnerMedia. Earlier this month it announced it would be retiring its HBO Go service and then subsequently launched its new all-you-can-eat app based streaming brand HBO Max.

Here’s how WarnerMedia put it: the HBO Now brand would be folded into the HBO app and current HBO Now subscribers would still be able to continue accessing HBO and also HBO Max through a rebranded HBO app on the same platforms they currently use to view HBO Now. The company said they had differentiated HBO Max and HBO, by noting that HBO Max is an app that includes all of HBO together but with additional WarnerMedia content offerings. So why isn’t it called Warners? The HBO app will be a standalone streaming platform for the HBO service. Get it? No.

The problem for me as that WarnerMedia is treating both HBO and HBO Max as separate brands which as they are presented they are not and for many customers, they can’t see why they are different. For the mot part their visual and name assets are shared but their offers are, by their own admission, differently positioned though HBO is inclusive of Max. Even in their press releases WarnerMedia says that all of HBO’s content will be available on HBO Max, so how is that not confusing?

So if HBO is the brand, why is HBO Max not being treated as a true sub-brand with a differentiated positioning, offer and audience or is looking for one? There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of thinking around updating each of the brand’s specific values and propositions. HBO has a lot of adult content, yet HBO Max is oriented towards family viewing but with parental controls of the adult content, much like Netflix. You get the picture or you do not.

It’s not particularly apparent what problem is being solved with the creation of this sub-brand. Wouldn’t WarnerMedia saved a whole lot of money and simplified it’s HBO brand platform by branding the entire offer HBO?

The next quarterly update on subscription numbers and value from WarnerMedia might provide some glimpse into what seems to be an apparent strategy fail.