Meet Chris Willard,Your Strategic Communications Partner.

Simply input your objective and target audience to unlock bespoke communications strategies that shape positive perceptions of your brand.

  • Whether you need an hour to pulse check your plans, a hired gun to launch your Next Big Thing, or a seasoned professional to pitch and manage your presence at a major industry event, Chris offers flexible plans and a network of entertainment and tech professionals and journalists in SF, LA, NYC and across the globe to help craft comprehensive communications strategies tailored to your brand’s goals.

  • How can you expect to see your messaging accurately covered in the media if you haven’t clearly defined it for yourself? Chris will help you understand the media landscape surrounding your initiative and create a strategic story to weave into every mention of your brand or product.

  • Your hour-by-hour launch plan has hundreds of to-do’s in it. Let us take a few of them off your plate! Chris will join the team early in the process to shape your launch story, manage all comms functions in the lead up to launch, demo your product or project for reporters, and provide real time media monitoring and issues management support as you go live.

  • You may find the idea of engaging with the media exciting, scary or anywhere in between. No matter how you feel – you need to be prepared. Chris will walk you through the do’s and don’ts of talking to reporters to help you land your key messages with impact.

  • S#!t happens. When it does, you need someone who can quickly understand the situation and assemble the right stakeholders to shape the story before the press starts shaping it for you. Not sure how, if, or when your brand should engage on an issue? Chris can help.

Chris’s Work

  • HBO Max to Max Rebrand

    Chris pitched and prepped CMO Pato Spagnoletto for a keynote interview at Adweek Convergent TV in 2024 to lay the groundwork for the company’s plans to rebrand HBO Max to Max. The rollout included off-the-record work ahead of launch and a full media day when the rebrand went live.

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  • Max Product & Tech

    Chris worked with CPO Tyler Whitworth and CTO Avi Saxena to set the stage for Max’s improved product experience and combined tech stack in TechCrunch. Chris also spearheaded product demos with leading tech and entertainment publications to educate and inform their coverage on launch day.

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  • House of the Dragon

    As part of the roll out of HBO’s House of the Dragon, network executives spoke with Vulture’s Joe Adalian about the ambitions for the show. Chris worked with Marketing EVP Zach Enterlin to dive deep into the launch campaign for the story.

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  • The Last of Us Ratings

    At HBO, Chris worked closely with programming and streaming leadership and the DTC leadership team to tell stories about viewership trends and platform analytics in outlets like Variety, Deadline, Bloomberg, The New York Times, and CNN, among others.

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  • Westworld VR Game

    In 2019, HBO partnered with gaming developer Survios to develop and release a VR game set in the Westworld unvierse. Chris worked with HBO tech leadership and the team at Survios to develop the press narrative and demo the game for reporters ahead of its launch.

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  • Game of Thrones Fandom

    On the eve of the final season of Game of Thrones, Chris worked with Fast Company to do a deep dive into how the HBO marketing team strategically grew and engaged the series’ fan base over eight seasons via innovative marketing strategies.

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  • GOT + Bud Light at Super Bowl LLIII

    As part of the final season roll out of Game of Thrones, HBO partnered with Bud Light to launch the most-talked-about ad during the Big Game in 2019. The centerpiece of the roll out was a Wall Street Journal article diving into the creative strategy featuring Marketing Heads from HBO and AB InBev.

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  • The Verge Goes Undercover at SXSW

    At SXSW 2018, HBO was the talk of Austin thanks to its Westworld theme park, which invited fans into the world of the show via an immersive theatrical experience. Chris led the PR roll out and guided hundreds of reporters and influencers through the experience, including The Verge’s Bryan Bishop, who went undercover as a Westworld host.

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  • SXSW Panel: HBO Max Curations

    At SXSW, Chris brought together the product and editorial team behind HBO Max’s curations across the globe to speak on a panel about how their human-first approach to content recommendation kept audiences coming back for more.

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Word On The Street

  • Chris Willard is among the very best communications professionals I've had the pleasure of working with throughout my career. His success is due to his deeply collaborative style, creativity, adaptability, and the trust he builds with everyone. Any communication project will be better for having Chris on the team.

    Liesel Kipp, SVP Global Product Management

  • One of Chris's strongest skills is his ability to break down complicated scenarios into an easily digestible narrative, resulting in clean press coverage. He has a keen ability to offer a well-rounded perspective and therefore prevent missteps early on in a business process. He champions collaboration and quickly earns the trust of leadership.

    Jeff Cusson, Head of Communications

  • Chris is an incredible comms strategist and all-around problem-solver. No matter how high-pressure, complex, or challenging the situation at hand, Chris always found a way to cut through the noise, bring the calm, and align multiple perspectives to drive towards a swift solution.

    Pat Lian, VP Global CX

About Chris Willard

Photo by Emily Loughridge

Chris Willard is a creative and ambitious strategic communications leader who drove successful PR strategies for every aspect of HBO’s business, guiding the culture-defining brand through the turbulent streaming revolution, as new technologies and challenger brands disrupted traditional business models and the way we consume entertainment.

For more than 15 years, Chris has steered the conversation at the intersection of culture and technology, working with senior executives across product, tech, marketing, research, data science, AI/ML, content strategy and other disciplines to launch new brands and evolve legacy brands without diminishing their hard-earned reputations.

At HBO, he launched TV shows, streaming services, VR games and experiences, AR lenses, voice skills, branching narrative tech, live fan experiences, a global concert tour, Super Bowl commercials and hundreds of consumer products that cemented HBO’s status as the go-to brand for curated, prestige television and turned shows like Game of Thrones into global phenomenons.

In 2023, he led the successful PR roll out for the rebranded Max streaming service, working closely with Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming leadership team across the U.S., Latin America, Europe and APAC to set the stage for the new brand and improved product experience.

Chris’s leadership during this period of rapid growth and change was a key influence in evolving a legacy entertainment business into one of the leading streaming players across the globe, giving him a unique perspective into how technology transforms business.

He is excited to build on this experience by working with brands who are charting a vision for the future, brands who are developing unique and exciting ways to evolve their businesses amidst disruption, and, in this new era of automation, brands who are finding the right balance between human and machine to drive innovation, educate and empower workers, and unlock value across their organizations.

Chris grew up in Oklahoma and has lived and worked in New York and Los Angeles. He now calls San Francisco home.

Contact us.

Think Chris Willard Communications may be able to help you amplify your brand message and grow your business?

Fill out the form or reach out via email to request an informational kick off call to find out more.

Email: chris(at)chriswillardcomms.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/chris-willard-comms

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Last Updated: February 6, 2024

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