talk

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.

Written by Nicolas Pinto

Billy Mays, the famous commercial pitchman, most known for his role in the OxiClean commercials, passed away on June 28, 2009, at the age of 50. Mays began his career at mall shows and convention centers near Atlantic City. There he learned the tricks of the trade from other veteran pitchmen and practiced his talent until he got to the top and became the famous OxiClean yelling pitchmen. His breakthrough helped the Appel family and Orange Glo International into a $200 million powerhouse. This year, he teamed up with his long time friend Anthony Sullivan to start on a Discovery Channel show “Pitch Men” aimed to show the world the process of the products that start from ideas that everyday people have, to multimillion dollar products that reach every house hold in America. Billy Mays knew how to turn an idea into a powerful invention, and helped people make their dreams come true.

Famous commercials from Billy Mays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NNv2oiWdRU

http://www.asseenontvvideo.com/Billy-Mays.html

Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter; Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen

 Written by Adal Gutierrez

The new movie building big expectations, not only among Disney fans, but especially among adults who have read the book, is Tim Burton’s adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. What is already an interesting project, because it is Burton and it is Alice, is flavored by the actors who bring the main characters to life: Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter; Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen; Anne Hathaway as the White Queen; and the new face of Australian actress Mia Wasikowska as Alice. Burton has already said he will stay true to the stories’ essence, although the plot is about a 17-year-old Alice that goes back to Wonderland, a place she visited ten years before. Recently, the images of some movie characters have been released and as you might guess, the movie will be a combination of live performance with animation. With Burton’s gift of a kind of insane and mesmerizing creativity; this movie might just surpass the great expectations it is generating. Alice in Wonderland is in pre-production and is expected to open in theaters March 5, 2010.

Too see more characters from the new movie, click below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/2009/jun/23/tim-burton-alice-in-wonderland-johnny-depp?lightbox=1

Written by Melissa Schwartz

In this day and age, technology seems to be establishing itself as the go-to medium for marketing campaigns. However, some major companies are taking an old school approach when it comes to promoting their products and services—and they are generating positive results!

Nike’s “Paper Battlefield” campaign, which consisted of a series of silk screen posters featuring and created by the top 10 teenage stars of the Nike Basketball League, just won the renowned Cannes Design Grand Prix on June 24^th.  What makes this win most interesting is that in an applicant pool consisting of over 1,100 campaign entries, many of which were touted as ‘technologically innovative’, Nike’s campaign utilized a 10^th century platform (silk screening). They were renowned “for simplicity over technical virtuosity or category-busting innovation”; according to the Cannes design jury.

Nike isn’t the first power-brand taking a back to basics approach to marketing.  In 2007, UPS launched their now infamous Whiteboard campaign, a series of commercials featuring a man drawing mundane pictures on a white board in order to tell stories about different UPS shipping options and company values. Since the commercials first aired they have received over 100,000 hits on YouTube and were even parodied by arch nemesis—FedEx.

So why are such basic campaigns generating so much consumer buzz? When companies such as CBS Outdoor are developing advertising platforms which allow consumers to connect their iPhone to a display screen via WiFi or 3G to create personalized posters, how is one guy with a pen and a white board making headlines?  I could only imagine it is at least partially due to the fact that consumers are constantly inundated with cutting edge media. Ironically, technical and creative innovation has become the norm. In an era where each design company and advertising agency are attempting to outdo one another with the most attention grabbing and novel ideas, the presence of straightforward campaigns–where the message, not the medium, is the main focus—can be relieving. Throw in the fact that in this economy marketing budgets are being cut left and right, and everyone seems to be scaling down, letting go of some of the bells and whistles associated with modern advertising may just be the way to go.

See these ads at:

http://whiteboard.ups.com/#

http://adage.com/cannes09/article?article_id=137548