Inside the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront: Branding Whiplash and 'The ‘White Lotus' Effect'
Taking a seat at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday morning, I scanned the crowd, soaking wet from the rain, and wondered how many gathered at the Warner Bros. Discovery upfront had any idea that they were about to get punked.
Two years after shoving the rebrand of streamer Max (née HBO Max) down advertiser throats, the 'HBO' is being surgically reattached to the platform on which the company's future hinges. Curiously, this development wasn't front-loaded in the presentation. It came 30 minutes in, after multiple mentions of 'Max,' when Casey Bloys arrived.
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'With the course we are on and the strong momentum we're enjoying,' said Bloys, 'we believe HBO Max far better represents our current consumer proposition.'
The proposition was received in the room with laughter and a smattering of 'oh wows,' though no one appeared to interpret the news as a joke. If anybody was grieving Max, they did so quietly or they skipped right to acceptance. 'The good news is I have a drawer full of stationery from the last round,' said the Chairman and CEO, HBO and Max Content, whose title likely changed mid-presentation. 'So I'm all set.'
An annual brag-fest thrown with the sole purpose of selling advertising space is an unusual venue to wave a white flag, but Bloys had fun with it — as did Max (Ahem, HBO Max) CMO Shauna Spenley. She went through her own spiel in front of a mocked-up meme of HBO Go, HBO Now, HBO Max and Max all sharing the same screen.
Though Warner Bros. Discover CEO David Zaslav was notably absent from the pageantry, there was no shortage of executives. In fact, the company was the first this week to populate its presentation with more suits than actors. There was a lot of telling, not showing, especially when newly installed co-presidents of ad sales, Ryan Gould and Robert Voltaggio, frontloaded the presentation with an extended spiel about various branded initiatives: something called 'Storyverse,' an in-house studio called 'Courageous' and sales tools DemoDirect and NEO. A pre-recorded Conan O'Brien attempted to explain how the latter worked, but he took it about as seriously as expected.
Are there not conference rooms and Zoom calls for this stuff?
The strongest case for advertising came with the so-called 'White Lotus Effect,' which got more oxygen than any other single piece of programming. Spenley cited ample brand partnerships and noted the correlation between the show's locales with tourism booms. 'I don't want to brag, but it feels like we're building national economies out here,' she said.
The screen behind Spenley switched to a tile of White Lotus tweets. One read, 'I wonder what Lachlan and Saxon are doing for National Sibling Day,' much to the room's delight.
So bullish is WBD on media buyers' appetite for The White Lotus, cast members Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb (aka 'The Big Blonde Blob') opened the show with a cute bit during which they complimented each other's skin with increasing puffery. 'Are we slipping back into character?' Asked Coon. 'Because if we are, I'm going to need a cocktail.'
Me too, Carrie.
But the star power diminished after that, only rebounding at the very last minute when Shaquille O'Neal joined DC's James Gunn and Peter Safran to screen the latest Superman trailer.
As one of several media giants boasting a storied film studio to present this week, it was notable how little attention was paid to WBD's film slate. The stunning success of Sinners, its own movie, got more attention during Michael B. Jordan's cameo at the Amazon pitch. Instead, the presentation devoted its precious time to other matters … like CNN CEO Mark Thompson heralding the arrival of a new weather app and Tony Shalhoub (God bless him) opining for minutes on the universality of bread. After 90 minutes, there was finally time to acknowledge that Minecraft, which just grossed $1 billion at the global box office, will eventually land on HBO Max.
Before the too-little-too-late nod to movies — before everything, in fact — the start of the show was heralded by someone from Actors Equity dressed up like one of those demonic nuns from the Dune movies. As people settled into their seats for what would be a nearly two-hour ordeal, her cryptic voice over promised 'a creative endeavor that will redefine what's possible' and 'a future that will lead the culture and heighten entertainment.'
It was a comically lofty promise that, not unlike NBCUniversal's just two days earlier, didn't quite pan out on stage. But who am I to hate on somebody for drinking a bit too much of their own sand worm juice?
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