All In: HBO Max’s 2021 Experiment
The election may be over, but WarnerMedia dropped a December surprise of their own earlier this month that sent shockwaves across Hollywood. Deciding to expand upon the release strategy for Wonder Woman 1984, they announced all 17 Warner Bros. films set for 2021 would be simultaneously released in theaters and on HBO Max at the same time.
Broadly, WarnerMedia has pinned this as a ‘fan-forward strategy’. CEO Jason Kilar recently told Variety it allowed them “to give fans the choice – in the middle of a pandemic, whether they go to theaters or whether they go to HBO Max or both”*. Consumer choice is at an all-time high today, pandemic or not, so WarnerMedia’s short-term goal to both feed consumer choice while also supercharging its HBO Max offering makes sense. The question of long-term effects on the industry have been the presence of many online conversations since the announcement, but what has been missed is what this ‘all in’ strategy can lead to from both a brand positioning and lifecycle management perspective.
When HBO Max launched this past May, there was confusion around the HBO product offering. The HBO linear channel had existed since 1972, and there were already digital services in the market called HBO Go and HBO Now. Even today, WarnerMedia admits that it was a mistake to launch with so many products still in the market**. HBO Max was positioned as “Where HBO Meets So Much More” – bringing together traditional HBO content with some of WarnerMedia’s biggest other properties including DC, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and Looney Tunes. While the content library was deep and expansive, brand confusion has continued throughout 2020.
With the release of all Warner Bros. films day & date with theaters set for next year, HBO Max has a clear content differentiator against its biggest competitors. It has provided HBO Max with a concise message about not only what makes them unique against other streamers, but HBO as well. While HBO was known for its premium content, HBO Max will be seen as the premiere home for some of 2021’s biggest movies without ever having to leave the comfort of your home. Not only that but making all films available to subscribers at no additional cost provides a simpler message to consumers than Disney Plus’ similarly structured Premiere Access program.
This strong brand positioning will definitely help HBO Max drive new user acquisition, and its decision to bring all 17 films to HBO Max upfront will help keep them there. For streamers, driving cancellation churn of current subscribers as low as possible is a key performance indicator of overall success. This logic is the same reason streamers tend to invest more in television originals than film; whether dropped weekly or all at once, television in general provides a greater number of viewable content hours for consumers, keeping them on the platform longer and less likely to cancel their subscription.
By both planning to release all 17 Warner Bros. films onto HBO Max and promoting that content strategy upfront, HBO Max has the opportunity to bring users in on one of 2020’s biggest films with Wonder Woman 1984 and retain them throughout 2021 with new films premiering every single month. Warner Bros. diverse slate, from family driven titles such as Tom & Jerry and In the Heights, to blockbuster fanfare like Dune and The Matrix 4, brings something for every member in the household, and simplifies the reasoning for users to stay subscribed each month. And while some consumers will certainly wait until the end of the year to binge the entire slate, that ‘fear of missing out’ on talking about the movies with friends as they premiere on HBO Max may make them a subscriber sooner than they anticipated.
With its decision, HBO Max guarantees exciting high-quality content and bold marketing opportunities through 2021. With so many continued unknowns heading into the new year, it’s comforting to know you have a strong value proposition for consumers. While the long-term effects may be unknown for quite some time, now is the time for experimentation in determining the future of content distribution.
* https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/warnermedia-ceo-jason-kilar-talks-160041260.html
