Brands & Branding and Private Labels Case Study

Managing Personality Brands: The Harry Potter Sag

OR

Abstract:
Harry Potter, a boy wizard created by JK Rowling, was introduced in 1997 as the central character of the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Rowling planned Potter's story in seven sequels. Following an agreement with the Warner Brothers the stories were converted into movies (as of July 2007 five stories have been converted into movies). Both the books and the movies were critically acclaimed and commercially successful. The case discusses the evolution of Harry Potter from a mere fictional character conceptualised by an unknown author into a world famous brand. The strategies that have been adopted in doing so are captured in the case study. Apart from giving a brief account of the key success factors of the brand the case also talks about its future prospects.

Pedagogical Objectives:

• To get an insight into the creation of the Harry Potter brand.
• To understand the key factors behind the success of Harry Potter.
• To analyse different marketing aspects such as buzz marketing, denial marketing etc and their contribution .

Keywords :  Harry Potter, Personality brand, Pottermania, Harry Potterism, JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, Word-of-mouth, Retromarketing, Teasing-the-customer, Tantalizing-the-customer, Witchcraft, Wizard, Magic