Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is days away from launching a consumer marketing blitz for its Max streaming service, which officially starts March 31.

The imminent arrival of the US platform will likely cause some early unsettling for Foxtel's Binge streaming service, which will see high-value Warner Bros. and HBO content roll out of its subscription TV assets and Binge streaming service come launch date for Max. But the local streamer is working hard to stem the bleed, partnering up with Netflix in a bundle deal with a $10.99 price point for access to both services ad-supported tiers - the 39 per cent discount is available to be cashed in by new, returning and current subs until April 30. It's also touting a half price deal on ad-tier sign ups for new and returning customers until March 31, at $4.99 a month for 12 months.  

Nine this week confirmed it had snagged sales rights for the platform’s ad-supported tier – ad sales teams are in market with 10 x $100-150k launch ad packages, guaranteeing 2.2 million ad impressions in the opening months at a CPM of $55. Nine and Warner Bros. would not be drawn on details.

Media buyers confirmed Nine's Max ad launch packages. Some suggested streaming services were taking increasing volumes of agency and advertiser "float" budgets – advertising dollars not pre-allocated to various media channels in annual deals – partly due to the volatility of daily SVOD audience delivery which is less consistent than the market was accustomed to from broadcast and broadcaster digital assets.     

For Warner Bros. the hope is that a Foxtel bundle deal will save Max from a Netflix-style false start, with Foxtel’s 1.4 million cable customers to gain free access to the streamer’s Basic With Ads service for no additional cost.

The expectation, Mi3 understands, is that around 30 to 40 per cent of those subscribers would take up the Max deal in the first instance – a circa 400-500k audience at launch. Those privy to the details said there was no category exclusivity on offer, and that post the delivery of launch package, Max ads could be would be traded as any other AVOD (ad-supported video on demand) service.

The Warner Bros.–Nine advertising deal is understood to be a conventional revenue-share structure and ultimately will carry Nine's data and audience segmentation capabilities. Buyers reckon it can only be a good thing for Nine, which will benefit from greater audience scale with Max inventory packaged up with its SVOD and BVOD (broadcast video on demand) audiences across 9Now and Stan Sport. Plus, it gains further intelligence ahead of its own full ads launch on Stan, confirmed to Mi3 last month by CEO Matt Stanton.

Mega slate

Market feedback so far has been solid with advertisers said to be interested, thanks largely to the platform’s hefty original content slate spearheaded by cult-favourite HBO series like Game of Thrones and Succession, plus current and returning seasons of ‘The White Lotus’, ‘House of Dragon’, ‘Euphoria’ and ‘The Last of Us’. The latter’s highly anticipated second season premiere next month will likely bring in new subscribers just two weeks into the launch.

Also in the catalogue are Max Originals like ‘Sex and The City’, ‘And Just Like That …’, and Warner Bros. Hollywood franchises – Harry Potter, DC Universe, Lord of the Rings, Dune, Barbie and the like. Reality programming is also in the mix from Discovery, TLC and Food Network, old Warner Bros. favourites like Friends, Gilmore Girls and Rick and Morty, as well as family friendly titles from Cartoon Network.

Launch pricing unveiled yesterday will put Max’s ad-tier on par with Netflix and Paramount, at $7.99 per month and with discounts on an annual subscription. After 30 April, new subscribers will sign onto the ad tier at $11.99 per month, making it one of the more expensive players in market. The ad-supported tier on Foxtel’s Binge, by comparison, comes in at $10 a month.

For customers eschewing ads, the standard and premium tiers will come in at $15.99 and $21.99, respectively, once the April pricing deal ends.

Campaign coming

With Nine in market on ads, the focus from Warner Bros. is on driving consumer subs to ensure the Max platforms secures a solid foothold in the Australian market against incumbents.

A Warner Bros. spokesperson confirmed the business is still on the hunt for an APAC marketing SVP following the exit of Daniel Tan. Sasha Mackie is understood to be leading the ANZ launch as senior director of marketing for streaming, studios, and networks since 2022.

A marketing campaign is due to land "in the coming days", per the spokesperson, and will form part of a "diverse multiplatform launch strategy". While Warner Bros. would not elaborate on campaign details, others created for the launch of the platform into Asian and European markets last year took consistent approaches, transporting a viewer from their phone or TV screen and into the immersive worlds of Max content – narrowly avoiding dragon fire in House of Dragon, riding a sandworm in Dune etc.

The creative for the campaign will be delivered by local hot shop Special, which has been appointed to the streaming service's roster alongside media agency of record EssenceMediacom. 

Hot contest

Even with marketing at full force, Max has a a steep hill to climb – Telsyte managing director Foad Fadaghi says the reality is “it’s more challenging than it was ten years ago to launch a new service”.

Netflix looms over the local SVOD leaderboard with 6.2 million total subscribers, per the latest Telsyte data. It's followed by 4.8 million on Amazon Prime Video service, 3.1 million on Disney+ and  2.6 million on Stan (see the chart below).

Advertising audiences and subscribers don't necessarily align, however. While Prime’s service includes ads across the board, Netflix touted its ad tier at 800,000 users in September – though could hit 2 million by 2027 per Ampere Analysis estimates. Disney+ doesn’t yet serve ads, – this will change when ESPN+ lands on the service later this month, through there is no confirmation yet of a full ad tier launch.

Fadaghi says attracting and retaining subscribers has become more competitive as cost-of-living pressures drive consumers to look closely at their subscription costs.

“While consumers have a propensity to have multiple subscriptions, there a lot more managing of subscriptions going on,” per Fadaghi. “They might subscribe for a month and watch a whole season in that month.”

Ampere Analysis’ data points to the same trend, with household subscription numbers having last year fallen for the first time since 2018, dropping marginally to 3.2 SVOD services per household after peaking at 3.3 the year before.

Per senior analyst Ed Ludlow, it indicates that “there's not much room for Max to grow into”. While the initial base onboarded from Foxtel will account for a baseline, “any growth beyond that is going to have to be taken from the other services”.

“Binge is probably most at risk just because it’s losing the Warner Bros. content, but I don't think any service is safe, because what we'll see is consumers churning through their services more regularly,” says Ludlow.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros' continued relationship with Foxtel mimics its growth strategy in other markets, where the business has partnered with competitors on bundled deals for the Max streaming service. According to Ampere, one third of the platform’s French customers had subscribed via a bundle deal with cable network Canal+, as of Q3 2024. A more unusual SVOD to SVOD deal saw Max link up with Disney+ and Hulu in the US, in a bundle that has the accounted for 13.4 per cent of ad tier sign ups since its launch last July.