[Barbara Duffek, associate professor of marketing at Georgia State University]
So what HBO essentially did, removing the word or the brand tag HBO, from HBO Max, was to remove some of that element that people held positive associations of and people held positive awareness of.
[Kennedy Felton]
After two years stuck as just MAX. Warner Bros. Discovery announced the return of HBO … coming this summer.
[Movie clip]
“It’s not TV, it’s HBO. Have you ever watched Sunday night programming on HBO. It’s spectacular.”
[Kennedy Felton]
For a long time, that was the sentiment around HBO’s programming. But in 2023, its parent company made a somewhat controversial naming decision.
[Barbara Duffek]
So HBO, as you said, is very well known for premium broadcasting and premium adult entertainment.
[Kennedy Felton]
To dig into the back and forth AND the importance of a name in branding… We tapped Barbara Duffek (DUH-FEK)…
[Barbara Duffek]
I’m an assistant professor of marketing at Georgia State University, J Mac Robinson College of Business.
What happened with Max is they wanted to bring in the family entertainment and the children’s entertainment as well. So they wanted to appeal to a wider audience, and that was their reasoning behind removing HBO from the brand name.
[Parker Posey]
“PIPER NO.”
[Kennedy Felton]
To understand why a name change might be needed. You kinda gotta get down with what it means to be a brand.
[Barbara Duffek]
Branding is a core part of marketing, after the four piece product, price, place, promotion, branding, essentially is what brings everything together and what helps companies communicate consistently with the consumers
[Kennedy Felton]
To further illustrate this Duffek uses Kevin Keller’s brand equity pyramid.
[Barbara Duffek]
You first need to build brand awareness, right? So if no one is aware of your brand, you cannot really have a brand to stand for. So once you have built awareness, people know your brand, you also want to have positive associations of your brand. So you want to ensure that that brand has a positive meaning to customers. Once you establish meaning, you want to trigger positive responses from consumers, and only then you can get to a strong brand equity and brand loyalty, where people would actually be loyal to your brand. They are willing to protect your brand, they are willing to stand up for your brand. They would go to your brand rather than another equivalent.
[Kennedy Felton]
A company changing their name isn’t that crazy of a proposition.
For instance… Ever heard of Brad’s drink?
Yeah that was the original name of Pepsi Cola until 1898
Nike also rolls off the tongue a little better than its original name Blue Ribbon Sports.
But those brands changed before they became household names.
Back in 2021, the parent company of Facebook changed its name.
[Mark Zuckerberg]
To reflect who we are and what we hope to build. I am proud to announce that starting today. Our company is now Meta.
[Barbara Duffek]
So proactive rebranding is when you’re rebranding based on consumers, changing needs, changing trends, changing opinions. So you want to be known for something new. So for example, Facebook rebranding to meta. They wanted to be known essentially, to be moving towards the metaverse
[Kennedy Felton]
And sometimes dropping qualifiers from a brand can work out. In 2007 Apple got rid of computers in its brand name as it focused on consumer electronics. Hello iPhone.
And in 2018 Dunkin’ Donuts dropped the reference to the delicious pastries in their name.
[Barbara Duffek]
But people already knew the brand as Dunkin before. So many people were actually referring to the brand as Dunkin.
From a consumer perspective, ensuring that consumers find you, and consumers find it easy to find you, because there are so many competitors out there. You as a consumer want to go with the brands that you recall immediately.
[Kennedy Felton]
While consolidation of branding in those cases is an easy adjustment, Twitter’s transition to X aligned with its new owner’s brand.
[Barbara Duffek]
Elon Musk himself is a brand, right? So him is associating another company with his own brand. So if you think about branding again, he is able to come up with this brand and introduce it as a successful brand, because he may be borrowing from associations from himself too.
[Kennedy Felton]
Alright… back to the return of HBO Max. Why make the change now?
Warner’s head of streaming JB Perrette says the platform will…
“…continue to focus on what makes us unique – not everything for everyone in a household, but something distinct and great for adults and families.”
Despite dropping HBO from the streaming service’s name, it kept churning out hit shows like White Lotus, The Last of Us, and Hacks…
And it didn’t take too big of a toll… Warner’s streaming offerings including Max and Discovery plus only dropped a few million subscribers in the months to follow.. But the company said it was due to overlap as they expanded offerings.
And the meager losses were short lived. In August 2023…
subscribers across WB platforms were just shy of 96 million.
Fast forward to May 2025 and its streamers have more than 122 million subs.
But bringing things back to Keller’s pyramid, brand recognition is measured in more than subscribers.
[Barbara Duffek]
they also removed some of that bottom of the pyramid. So if you think about the pyramid, you’re building it up one by one, but when you. We move the bottom, you, by nature, take away some of those groundwork
[Kennedy Felton]
Obviously, things could have gone worse for Max.
One of the more prolific failed rebranding efforts happened to the number one name in streaming.
[Barbara Duffek]
Netflix, where we are associated with entertainment, Netflix and chill, right?
[Kennedy Felton]
In early 2011, Netflix tried to split off its DVD-by-mail business – its bread and butter at the time – and the newer streaming service.
In that scenario. Streaming would have remained Netflix while DVDs would become Quikster.
[Barbara Duffek]
Sometimes companies do that to be known for something else. And that could be one way if a company wanted to branch out into a completely new domain and make sure that it doesn’t hurt their own brand. It is a way to introduce a completely new brand for that.
[Kennedy Felton]
Everyone hated it and they didn’t move forward.
