Go share your HBO Go password, because the company does not mind. In effect that's what the company's chief executive said in a recent interview. The streaming service knows that it is a prevalent practice among its account holders but his pronouncements give a good hint of what the company is trying to do.
CEO Richard Plepler sat down for a session of BuzzFeed Brews with editor of BuzzFeed Business Peter Lauria.
"It's not material to our business. It's not that we are unmindful of it but it has no real effect on the business," said Plepler.
"To us it is a terrific marketing vehicle for the next generation of viewers," he added after recounting his experience of finding out through intern talks, focus groups and surveys who share HBO Go passwords with their parents and who will be likely to get their own account in the future.
Plepler clarified that it is not their strategy to ignore password sharing practices of consumers but somehow the business benefits from it.
"It's not that we're ignoring it, and we're looking at different ways to affect password sharing. I'm simply telling you: it's not a fundamental problem, and the externality of it is that it presents the brand to more and more people, and gives them an opportunity hopefully to become addicted to it," he explained. "What we're in the business of doing is building addicts, of building video addicts. The way we do that is by exposing our product, our brand, our shows, to more and more people."
The $150 HBO Go is a value added service bundled with the company's cable offering. One must subscribe to the latter in order to enjoy the offerings of the former. For now, Plepler sees this model to be working for the company.
"Right now, that's the right model for us," the HBO chief executive said.
However, Plepler also indicated that password-sharing is something that the company may not always choose to ignore, especially in the future.
"Are we always thinking about optionality, of course we are always thinking about optionality... if the arithmetic changes and made sense in a different way we are not going to be caught without the ability to pivot," Plepler said.
So for now, go share those passwords until HBO decides to say "no go."
