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What’s in a name? For the upcoming HBO Max and Discovery+ combined streamer, it’s a lot.
Warner Bros. Discovery is set to roll out its new combined service in the spring, with an event on April 12 to announce more information. And though the company hasn’t revealed the name of the new streamer yet, Patrizio Spagnoletto, Warner Bros. Discovery’s global chief marketing officer for streaming, recently explained the reasoning behind the upcoming moniker.
During Adweek’s Convergent TV Summit on Wednesday, Spagnoletto sat down with Adweek senior reporter Mollie Cahillane and talked about what went into creating the name.
The Warner Bros. Discovery global CMO of streaming first explained that HBO took decades to develop into the brand it is today—one people recognize for its quality. And when dealing with a legacy brand like that, there are positives and negatives.
“It is good because it’s very clear it’s a premium brand with very specific content,” Spagnoletto said. “When we launched HBO Max, we stretched that brand to put more titles under it. And as we now add the Discovery content library, we will stretch it too far.”
Spagnoletto explained the core question the company was taking on: “How do we protect and continue to invest in HBO as a brand but signal change to the overall market with a name of a service that is a part of the aperture?”
He added that the company wanted the service to continue to say “quality” but be put through a broader filter that includes everything from House of the Dragon to 90 Day Fiancé.
“Because quite obviously they’re both quality, but they’re very different parameters of quality,” Spagnoletto said. “When you’re looking for reality, lean-back content, the 90 Day Fiancé franchise is one of the most successful franchises in the history of reality TV. So people laugh when you say that, but then you put the stats behind it, and you go, ‘Oh no, that actually is a real metric.'”
However, he added that, despite the numbers, that doesn’t mean the reality TV series is a good addition to HBO.
“That doesn’t compute,” Spagnoletto said.
The goal is to form “a new mosaic of which HBO is a core component but ladders up to something a little bit bigger,” Spagnoletto explained. This combined service will effectively host and house all the company’s content.
Taking the streamer to the Max
Spagnoletto also said that Discovery+ would remain as a separate streamer outside of the combined service, though Discovery+ users will have plenty of opportunities to join the bigger platform.
“Discovery+ is an extremely well-oiled machine for a superfan of that type of content. So to shut it down would be both strategically and tactically a mistake,” he said, adding that the new combined service will be the biggest priority.
Though Spagnoletto wouldn’t reveal the name of the combined service, reports late last year claimed the company would go with “Max.”
During the Convergent TV Summit, Cahillane also pitched Spagnoletto other possible names on stage, including “HB-Oh My God” and “Mad MAX: Content Road.”
As far as the actual name of the combined streamer, time will tell, with more info coming at next month’s Warner Bros. Discovery press event.
