HBO Max’s rebrand brings more content to consumers

Welcome to June. And the end of Q2. How are the brands entering the second half of the year? Let’s get into it.

HBO Max’s Rebrand to Max Doubles Available Content

Warner Bros. Discovery’s rebrand of HBO Max to simply “Max” is officially complete. Now, users have “access to 35,000 hours of content—more than double the amount that HBO Max offered.” In response, NBCUniversal’s Peacock tweeted, “I know you’re all very disappointed, but I will not be dropping the first half of my name any time soon 👀.”

Twitter Signs Deal with Ad Tech Vendor as Worth Drops to an All-Time Low

All is not well at Twitter—not only does 99% of hate speech posted by Twitter Blue users go unchecked but Twitter’s now worth less than half of what Musk purchased it for. Coincidence? We think not. We’ll see if new CEO Linda Yaccarino’s deal with an ad tech vendor can turn things around for the platform.

Smoothie King Writes a Romance Novel with ChatGPT

If you didn’t have this on your Bingo square, you’re forgiven—Smoothie King is releasing a steamy, smoothie-centric novel as a media tie-in for its X-Treme Watermelon™ smoothie. But the twist: the 157-page novel was written using ChatGPT and bears the tagline, “A story so romantic, computers might finally understand what love is.”

North Face Sticks By Its Values Unlike “Rainbow Capitalists”

Unlike Target who rolled back their Pride efforts, North Face doubled down in its support of the LGBTQ+ community. This also comes after Bud Light backpedaled on its campaign with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney after Bud Light consumers started a boycott of the product.

Around the Web

• LinkedIn’s new global campaign called “Find Your In” promotes the power of networking.

• Bose’s CMO Jim Mollica shares his vision for the company after two years.

• Apple will try to court advertisers at Cannes Lions.

• State Farm is relaunching its esports campaign “Gamerhood Challenge” with YouTube as a partner.

• Frito-Lay is making the largest-ever investment in FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023.

Just Can’t Get Enough

AI equity. As in, please eliminate bias and decolonize the tech. Please.

• Over 15 research papers were published this year showing AI systems translate other languages into English well but struggle to go the opposite way.

• Meanwhile, AI also “continues to be fed racist and sexist training materials and then distributed around the world.”

How do you feel about AI writing smoothie novels? Do you think Twitter has hope for a comeback or is this ad tech deal too little too late? What brand do you think will shorten their name next? Reply and let us know your thoughts!

Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you Tuesday!