The HBO brand doesn’t deserve this

HBO Max might be getting a brand update. Again.

The streaming service has notoriously waffled between different names and logos over the past several years. More recently, it got caught up in an intense bidding war between Netflix and Paramount Skydance to acquire its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

On February 27, Netflix finally admitted defeat and abandoned its takeover bid—meaning Paramount is set to acquire WBD for $110 billion. The transaction is expected to close later this year.

This supersize deal will undoubtedly have major ripple effects across the broader entertainment industry. But for HBO, it might mean yet another blow to an already diluted brand. 

In an investor call on March 2, Paramount CEO David Ellison said the company plans to merge HBO Max with its existing streaming service, Paramount+. Bringing the two streamers together, he said, will give the company “a little over 200 million direct-to-consumer subscribers.”

Ellison did not share any details about what such a move might look like in practice, but did clarify that he intends to allow HBO Max’s leadership to continue operating the streamer without too much oversight.

According to Stefanie Gilmore, head of strategy in North America at the global brand design agency Design Bridge and Partners, this deal looks “rosy” from a business perspective at both HBO Max and Paramount.

However, she says, the merger could easily turn south if HBO loses its distinct brand voice in the process. 

What’s next for HBO Max?

For Paramount, Gilmore says, the logic of combining HBO Max and Paramount+ is fairly straightforward: It should increase revenue by allowing Paramount to offer better subscription prices for a broader catalog of content.

The downfall, she says, will come if executives don’t allow the HBO brand to continue to live up to the high-quality content that it’s become known for, “in turn harming the brand and decreasing the content diversity that makes the case for bundling in the first place.” 

Long before it was a streaming service called HBO Max, HBO was a legacy cable network known for its prestige programming, including The Sopranos and The Wire. More recent hits like Game of Thrones, The White Lotus, and Succession have cemented HBO’s reputation for delivering unique, zeitgeist-defining television.

Compared with other major players like Netflix and Disney+, it has a grittier, edgier brand reputation. 

“The caliber and consistency of content is HBO’s differentiator,” Gilmore says. “It’s what its equity is built on. And at a time when taste in general is being flattened and undervalued, and other platforms are designing content to specifically satisfy our incessantly scrolling, dopamine-seeking minds, we need providers like HBO to stay true to what they stand for and deliver on their promise of considered, curated content.”

Fast Company reached out to Paramount Skydance to ask about its plans for the brand under a merged streaming service.

HBO Max’s history of brand woes

Paramount will be walking a fine line to preserve HBO’s distinct reputation, considering that the brand’s identity has already been repeatedly diluted by a series of unfortunate rebrands over the past several years. 

In 2020, HBO was riding high. Streaming numbers were up due to a pandemic-based spike in viewership, and hits like Euphoria were helping HBO stand out amid the streaming wars.

At the time, the brand was owned by the media conglomerate WarnerMedia and was represented by the name “HBO Max” in a logo with white text on a purple background. HBO Max included access to classic shows from HBO’s cable days, content from the Warner Bros. library, as well as new “Max Originals” designed specifically for the streaming service.

If that sounds slightly confusing, things were about to get much worse.

In 2023, WarnerMedia merged with Discovery to create WBD. This meant bringing even more content, including Discovery shows and CNN, into the HBO Max ecosystem.

Under this new leadership, HBO Max was renamed Max and the purple brand color was replaced with a bright blue. At the time, experts called it the biggest brand blunder of the year, while the public simply continued referring to the streamer by its former name.

WBD tried to patch this up just two years later in April 2025, when it scrapped the blue color scheme for a black-and-white look that hearkened back to HBO’s origins.

Finally, in perhaps one of the quickest rebrand reversals in history (barring Cracker Barrel), WBD announced in May 2025 that it would restore the name “HBO Max,” now also in the black-and-white color scheme. 

This cartoonish game of branding telephone undoubtedly took a toll on HBO Max’s brand perception.

But, as of earlier this year, it seemed like the brand was on an upward trajectory—embracing the name its consumers actually use once again, opting for a visual identity with some historical ties, and even poking some lighthearted fun at its own mishaps on X. 

With the new deal underway, it remains to be seen whether HBO Max will get yet another facelift. For Gilmore, though, one thing is certain: If the brand loses its unique approach to content, its viewer base will go with it, she says.