HBO rebranded to Max as part of their larger strategy to expand the company's appeal and reach. The rebranded name, ‘Max’, was chosen to be more inclusive and accessible than the existing name, HBO. The rebranded name Max, is also meant to reflect the company's growing library of content, which now includes shows and movies from both HBO and Discovery+.
Any rebrand is a difficult decision, and a weigh-up of risk vs. reward. With the addition of Discovery+ huge amount of content, they saw this as the perfect timing to rebrand.
BEFORE & AFTER
Brand equity is solid gold
A ‘brand’ cannot simply be bought or built overnight — the huge amount of brand equity HBO has built is priceless. The consistent quality of their content over the last decades has built HBO an enormous amount of brand equity and now it feels like they’re risking it all by removing their key signifier ‘HBO’. A less riskier move would have been to stick with HBO Max, but sometimes it is better to just rip off the band-aid in one go.
The rebranded logo
The new logo takes direct inspiration from the HBO logo with the circle within the ‘a’. This is a respectful nod to the original logo, something we will often try and capture when rebranding. This subtle nod will go a long way to help in the short term after the new brand is launched, with recognition to HBO.
Visually, both logos are three letters and include a subtle unique device — the circle within the ‘O’ / ‘a’ characters. The original logo has authority, reflected by the capitalisation, and the project stakeholders will try and convince of the new logos ‘humanising and approachable’ qualities captured by its lowercase characters and the curves presented in the ‘m’ and the ‘x’. In reality, there is a limit to how much a logo can be humanised, especially a 3-letter logo!
To close
In my opinion, the rebrand feels a little uninspired and lacks the impact of the original. I have to question, wasn’t there a better way, to maintain the brand equity that was long built by HBO and not suffer the confusion/ inevitable backlash that comes with any high profile rebrand in 2023?
It’s a questionable failure in the short-term, but long-term only time will tell!