Written by Charlotte Blumenfeld
Quidditch. Hogwarts. Gryffindor. Even though you won’t find them in the Oxford English Dictionary, if you haven’t been living under a rock (or sequestering yourself from all entertainment media coverage) for the past decade, you probably know what these words refer to. The sport played by Harry Potter and his pals, the school they attend, and the house in which they reside all comprise integral parts of the storyline at the heart of one of the biggest print, motion picture, licensed merchandise, and web content media juggernauts in recent memory. In fact, after reviewing worldwide box office returns, Warner Bros. announced in a 2007 press release that the Harry Potter film series had become the most successful movie franchise in history. When the sixth and latest installment of the film series hit theaters on July 17, the franchise raked in $58.2 million in North America alone within just the first twenty-four hours of its release. Harry Potter, with all its attendant sequels and products, has clearly achieved real cultural ubiquity in many regions of the globe—and the blockbuster financial returns to match. And its momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.
So what can marketing and media professionals learn from the runaway success of the latest Harry Potter film, and of the Harry Potter franchise more generally? Firstly, as the old adage goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Although marketers should always be looking for ways to innovate and to deliver more value (or at least more perceived value) to the consumer, the franchise’s continuing profitability is living proof that once a brand name identifies itself as a strong presence in the marketplace, its essential character shouldn’t be tampered with. Just as Harry Potter content has been leveraged in multiple media channels, but has not been diluted or stretched too thin, so to speak, by being licensed for use on merchandise targeted to either the toddler market or the 65+ one, other brands shouldn’t try to be all things to all people. At the same time, throwing financial muscle (in the form of underwriting the costs of heavy promotion) behind a brand name that has shown itself to have natural appeal to consumers of both genders and a wide variety of age groups has been a savvy and lucrative decision for everyone involved in the Potter franchise. The same key strategy has worked extremely well for market leaders like Coca-cola and McDonald’s, and could prove to be a valuable approach for managers of smaller brands as well.