We Only Started Calling HBO “Max” Because the Other Options Were Worse
We were almost "Crotch TV" or "The Blurmp" (SPECIAL DOUBLE ARTICLE!!!)
HEY FOLKS! I had two things I wanted to write on this topic: A jokey thing, and a less-jokey thing about how the choices HBO made in recent years influence my thinking about choices Democrats have coming up (and, as you may know, I was working for HBO when some of those decisions were made). The jokey piece is below, and it’s free. And the less-jokey piece is behind the paywall. So, please enjoy, and if you’re the type of big shot who has $5 lying around, please subscribe!
You may have heard that the company I work for — recently called “Max”, and before that called “HBO” — is reverting to the name “HBO Max”. There’s no sugarcoating it: This was a disastrous rebrand. We’re returning to “HBO”, but only after a highly-public misfire that will be taught as a cautionary tale in marketing classes for years to come.
People might wonder why we ditched “HBO” — one of the most well-regarded brands in entertainment — for “Max”, which sounds a little like an energy drink, and a lot like a chain of porno theatres that went broke in the ‘90s. The first part of that question is easy to answer: We changed names because AT&T — our new parent company as of 2018 — wanted a change. The second part of the question is more complicated…why Max? Why a vague, abrasive name that evokes 1) Feminine hygiene products, 2) The Grinch’s dog, and 3) One of our own premium cable competitors, who are mostly known for softcore porn movies about busty female cops who solve crimes in strip clubs?
Well, I was there, and I can tell you: We just couldn’t think of a name that was better than “Max”. Have you ever been in a brainstorming session that simply didn’t take off? Well, I ran the flatlined brainstorming session to end all flatlined brainstorming sessions. And it wasn’t one session — we tried for months. But when I tell you the other names that we came up with, you’ll probably agree that “Max” was the least-bad option.
My team began with plenty of pep in our step. The top brass said that there had to be a new name, and I know I wasn’t the only one who saw this as a fun, creative challenge. I gathered 15 of the company’s top marketing minds in a corner conference room fully stocked with Red Bull and pastries. I explained our mission, clapped my hands, and popped the question: “Whaddya got?”
The first suggestion was “Anus Town”. The room froze for an instant when Keith — a fast-rising exec we had poached from Netflix — suggested that we rename the network that made The Sopranos, The Wire, and Game of Thrones “Anus Town”. But — consistent with the ethic that there are no bad ideas in brainstorming — I said “Yes, Anus Town — good, Keith!” And I wrote it on the whiteboard.
The next suggestions — in order — were:
Fartgasm
Blisters 2 Go
Cosbys Only
The Blade of Sauron
Shitcake.biz
Frotteur-Vision
Corn
Disney Plus
Maggots! Maggots! Maggots!
Anusville
The BLOAT
Anusburg
St. Anusburg
Craptasia
Keith TV
How did things go so wrong? I ask myself that question every day. In hindsight, I think I should have pushed back against “Anus Town” — that might have been my chance to encourage people to mentally polish their ideas before sharing them with the group. Also, my feigned enthusiasm seemed to lead people to believe that “Anus Town” was close, so they kept tweaking it, for some reason thinking that “Town” was the problem. And once the train started rolling in the wrong direction, I couldn’t turn it around.
Here’s the white board from our second session:
Once again, my fatal error came early on: When someone pitched “Disney Plus” in the first session, I should have pointed out that that’s already the name of a company. This session devolved into an argument about whether it’s legal to co-opt the name of an existing company (or defunct ‘90s band). I didn’t think things could get worse after the first brainstorming session, but when this one ended in a red-faced screaming match over whether “Keebler” is a company or a race of elves, I learned that they could.
Incredibly, future sessions were even worse. We had a session in June that was entirely racial slurs. Seriously: We pulled an all-nighter, hundreds of suggestions were made, and each and every one of them was an unspeakable smear of an ethnic group. You’re probably thinking “that’s not possible” — that’s what I would have thought before I saw it happen! This was a racially diverse group of highly successful executives, but — due to some form of mass brain lock that should probably be in the DSM-5 — the only words anyone could conjure were vile epithets that would get you banned from 4-Chan.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t fire my team and start fresh: I did. But, incredibly, the new team was just as bad, and actually pitched several names that the first team had pitched. And when two people who are not connected in any way independently suggest that your prestige-oriented streaming platform should be called “Whoops.MEOW”, it’s reasonable to think that forces beyond your understanding are at work. I truly believe that we were cursed. I’m not superstitious, I have never believed in witchcraft, but when when you sit in a room full of adults racking their brains try to conjure an idea, and after 20 minutes of total silence, two people at opposite ends of the room simultaneously say “FLEA PENIS!”, you have to wonder what forces are at work.
After eight months of three-to-five brainstorming sessions a week, the leading candidates were “The Pube” and “Missy McSassy’s TV Town”. Then, in a moment that qualifies as a true “Eureka!” moment given the context, an intern — who was really only there to take notes — looked across the table at an executive named Max and said: “Max”. You can understand why I reacted like she had solved the Rosetta Stone. “THAT’S IT!!!” I yelled. “We’re MAX!!!” The room followed my lead, and a few months later, the name was announced at a press conference to stone-cold silence. Is “Max” a good name? No, obviously not. But I will go to my grave arguing that it’s a better name than StenchBox or Keith’s Quality Hole (two other contenders).
The lesson: There are bad ideas in brainstorming. Don’t commit to a change until you know the alternatives. And when hiring a creative team, perform due diligence to see if any of them have gotten crosswise with a sorcerer, ghost, or voodoo priest. Let the worst experience of my career — and maybe of my life — guide you. And if you find yourself thinking “Why doesn’t HBO Max just go back to being ‘HBO’?”, remember that things could be so, so much worse.
PHOTO CREDITS: “Kyle Melnyk” byline from a photo by PodMatch, white board built from a photo by Boston Yuki.
Thanks, Kyle — harrowing stuff. But now let me talk about how the changes after the AT&T/Time Warner buyout looked from a different part of the company, and why those changes should perhaps be front-of-mind for Democrats.
When AT&T bought Time Warner and its subsidiary HBO in 2018, I was a writer at Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Obviously, Some Fucking Writer at Some Fucking Show is the last person any high-ranking media executive would consult about business strategies, and that’s as it should be. But people above me were involved, and the decisions that were made were closely watched in my little corner of the world.