HBO to Max and Back Again: A Costly Lesson in Brand Equity

When Warner Bros. Discovery announced in 2023 that it was sunsetting the iconic HBO brand in favor of “Max,” marketers everywhere cringed. At least I know I did. But perhaps more importantly, consumers were confused by the decision.

As is the case with many mergers and acquisitions, senior leadership is usually focused on the dollars and cents of the deal, the money they will make and how quickly they can recoup their investment. Very rarely are these leaders interested in or focused on how this will affect end consumers—you know, the people who buy the product or service.

Of course in an acquisition or merger you want to make sure that the math adds up. If the math isn't mathing, you can't do the deal or you risk all involved companies. But in my humble opinion, the reason mergers and acquisitions are almost never successful is because the math is usually the only aspect that is focused on and often to the detriment of the future of the newly combined company.

In theory, I understand why David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, led the charge to consolidate all of the acquired brands into a single offering. Many times as a business, it makes sense to streamline it for clarity for consumers, to find efficiencies as an organization, reduce overhead, etc. But there are plenty of times it is not the best path forward.

At its highest level, this is an instance where it was not the best path forward. These leaders clearly didn't understand, or take the time to do the research to understand, what they had or whether it would be a good idea to rebrand before charging forward.

Why Brand Equity Due Diligence Matters In M&A

This HBO → Max → HBO Max saga demonstrates the power of brand in the minds of consumers and perhaps more importantly, the total the lack of understanding leadership had of this fact. What many senior leaders seem to fail to recognize or fully understand is that the reason they are interested in a company, and find it valuable is not because of the P&L or due to the work of the finance people.

The value is created in the humanity of the organization—the people who work there that built such a special company, built the product that customers want and cultivated the customer relationships that would want to purchase their product...these are the same valuable aspects necessary when building a brand and the equity that comes with that brand.

Had Warner Bros and Discovery senior leadership done its due diligence or understood that fact or even brought brand and marketing experts into the decision making process, then they would have known that HBO was—and still remains (despite their bad decisions)—one of the most valuable and respected names in entertainment.

HBO is literally synonymous with prestige storytelling, carrying decades of cultural weight, built off shows like The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Game of Thrones, and Succession. It was shorthand for quality television. It had immensely positive brand equity associated with it. So why would you strip that away in favor of something as bland and empty as “Max”?

My Marketing Take: Three Reasons Why HBO Shouldn't Have Been Rebranded

Putting aside my perspective on the role of brand and marketing in M&A in general, I wanted to give my POV on why this was such a bad decision. Here are my specific reasons, my take on why this HBO rebrand should not have been done at all.

1. HBO Didn't Have a Brand Problem

   HBO wasn’t a name in need of fixing. Consumers didn’t have a brand problem with HBO—they had a catalog complexity problem, trying to distinguish HBO Max from HBO Go and HBO Now. In other words, customers loved the content. The real challenge was operational clarity on where to go for what, not the brand positioning. By eliminating HBO altogether, and exasperating the operational issue, the company diluted the very equity that made its streaming service desirable in the first place.

   
   

   The silliest part is had they spent a nominal fee for some research to investigate the strength of the brand equity or ask customers what their biggest pain points were, senior leadership would have learned this fact. I'm talking less than $100K could have given them this clarity. Instead they decided to just blindly rip the bandaid off and run with it.

   
   

2. The Mish-Mash of "Max" Confused the Consumer

   Not only did Warner Bros and Discovery walk away from the HBO brand equity, it decided to combine it with the content from Warner Bros and Discovery. This created a generic combination poo-poo platter of content from 3 distinct brands, which only confused customers further.

   
   

   In other words, instead of understanding the power each brand had separately in the eyes of consumers and building the strategy or offerings around it, this ended up diluting each of those brands individually, while also forcing customers to learn how to navigate a mish-mash branded app with a piss-poor user experience. Seriously, as a consumer myself, I have yet to meet a single person who thinks the user experience of Max is good or easy to navigate. In one word, it is awful!

   
   

3. The Wasted Spend

   Coming back to that whole math thing...here’s where the pain really sets in. Global rebrands of this scale don’t come cheap. Analysts estimate the HBO-to-Max transition cost anywhere from $100–$250 million, covering app redesigns, marketing campaigns, updated signage, licensing, and brand awareness pushes across dozens of markets.

   
   

   Now add the cost of pivoting back to HBO—another round of updates, advertising, and consumer education—and the total waste could easily climb to $300–$400 million. That's right, nearly half a billion dollars playing ping pong with brand names.

   
   

   To put that in perspective: HBO currently charges customers around $15–$20 per month. That means Warner Bros. Discovery effectively spent the equivalent of 20 million subscriber months (or more) on a branding flip-flop that no consumer even asked for. In other words, revenue from every subscriber’s money for an entire month or two evaporated—not on new content, not on better user experience in the $hitty app, but on a name change.

As a consumer, I'm annoyed because I love the content that comes out of HBO and am tired of the never ending mergers and acquisitions and name changes in entertainment. As a marketer I am triple annoyed because these guys (I used the word 'guys' intentionally because as per always, women were not at the table for such idiotic choices) threw away decades of brand equity in seconds without ever once considering the damage they'd be doing.

The Takeaway for Leaders

The HBO → Max → HBO saga is a case study in what happens when leadership ignores or doesn't understand brand, brand equity or how much consumers lean on that brand equity in their purchasing and consumption habits. A name isn’t just a label—it’s a promise built over decades of consumer trust and cultural relevance. And whether leaders want to admit it or not, the name and the brand equity associated with it are a big part of what makes a company valuable. Marketers understand that equity is hard to earn and easy to squander.

When you’ve built a brand that defines a category, the job is not to reinvent it into something generic—it’s to clarify, extend, and strengthen it. HBO didn’t need to be hidden. It needed to be amplified.

The lessons here are clear:

1. Never underestimate the value of your brand name.

2. Never make brand decisions in a vacuum and devoid of input from your customers.

3. Never spend hundreds of millions of dollars fixing a problem your customers never had.

4. Always contact me or another seasoned marketer to gain insight and guidance before you start making brand decisions like this. We can save you a whole lot of money and a whole lot of headache.