With less than a day to go until Warner Bros. Discovery launches Max—the new streaming service combining HBO Max and Discovery+ content—the company unveiled a comprehensive social marketing strategy headlined by Jason Momoa and Issa Rae.
For launch day on May 23, all HBO Max brand social and audience handles will become Max. With a reach of more than 16 million followers across platforms, the social brand team wanted to ensure that audience recognized the new combined content platforms and draw wider reach.
“The organic social campaign to support the launch of Max is as far-reaching and varied as the audiences that we’re going to have on Max,” Jason Mulderig, svp of brand marketing at HBO and Max, told Adweek.
Mulderig said the campaign will take advantage of a “triple threat of social,” pointing to brands like Food Network and HBO, franchises like Game of Thrones and 90 Day Fiancé, and audiences profiles like Scene in Black and Pa’lante.
“Our goal is to reach those audiences in-feed from brands they touch and create that connection to Max, and I think that’s really the most authentic way to go about doing it,” Mulderig said.
Vast brand support
Twitter handles for WBD’s networks will have a unique asset for Max’s launch, which will highlight the brand’s highest-profile titles. Those include brands like Food Network, TBS, TLC, Animal Planet, Magnolia Network and more.
On the IP side, WBD developed creative to showcase Warner Bros. Pictures, The Big Bang Theory, Friends, Sex and the City, Gossip Girl and DC Comics, among other properties.
“It’s very likely that our audience follows multiple feeds from brands and from shows, so those experiences in-feed from brands they trust, they’ll start to have impressions from Max all across the ecosystem,” Mulderig said.
The company will continue its existing One to Watch campaign and also further the To Be Continued campaign.