Strategic marketing : the secrets of Harry Potter's success

Résumé du document

Over ten years ago, the world witnessed the inception of one of the most impressive success stories ever - the Harry Potter books. Since the publication of the first book, Harry Potter has become a commercial, cultural and social phenomenon. With each passing year, the Potter mania has captured more and more people, boys and girls, children and adults, readers and spectators.

The Harry Potter phenomenon is an unprecedented one; everything linked to it is magical and massive: the non-stop marketing campaigns, the over-enthusiastic fans, the commercial lure around the Harry Potter brand or even the critics, all these issues are now stronger than before.

How can we explain the success of the brand Harry Potter? What are the secrets of the little wizard and his friends? This analysis provides some answers to these questions. It is divided indifferent sections:

1.The first part consists of a brief introduction to the Harry Potter series and a chronological analysis of the Harry Potter brand's success.

2.In the second part, we will conduct an internal analysis of the brand Harry Potter with the four dimensions marketing strategy called NAME: Narrative, Ambiguity, Mystery and Entertainment.

3.The third part is an external analysis of the Harry Potter phenomenon. What are the threats and opportunities that the brand is currently facing?

4.And finally, the fourth part is dedicated to the evolution of the marketing strategy and to recommendations based on the analysis.

Extraits

[...] Consequently, our recommandation were about turning these opportunities into strenghts and counter-attacking the threats. They aim at using new technologies to expand the business and update the promotion campaigns as well as selling more environmentally friendlier books or developing the use of the books at schools to make of Harry Potter a permanent phenomenon. But finally, the main issue is the future of the Harry Potter brand . Will we ever hear of the little wizard after the last book and the last movies? [...]

[...] The external analysis will identify the opportunities and the threats that the Harry Potter brand is currently facing. External analysis of the Harry Potter brand Even if the brand image is very strong, the Harry Potter needs to maintain or to improve it and that's why it is very important to study the external factors which could be either opportunities or threats. The main factors are political/legal, economic, sociocultural, technological and environmental. Political/legal factors Politics don't play a role concerning the Harry Potter brand, however there are some legal factors that threaten it. [...]

[...] Presentation of the brand Harry Potter Who is Harry Potter? Harry Potter is the hero of a serie of seven books relating his adventures during his education in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by the author JK Rowling. Each book corresponds to one year spent in Hogwarts and therefore Harry Potter and the other characters are growing in every book, like the readers. Harry Potter is an orphan and lives with his uncle, aunt and cousin. He is a very simple, innocent and brave boy. [...]

[...] It gave the phenomenen a new and bigger dimension. Many fans went to the movie theatre wearing costume, making of this release a big celebration. Concerning the sixth book, Scholastic started the marketing campaign nearlly half a year before the official launch! Keeping that idea of celebration and trying to attract new customers, many promotion tools were used to lead the Day Countdown to Harry” campaign. Scholastic published a crossword about the children's favorite wizard in the very serious New York Times. [...]

[...] The consumers really love Harry Potter while most of the critics hate it! In a word, Harry Potter is what we can call an ambi-brand with its pluri- appeals. Some people believe that it is the symbol of the end of monolithic marketing and the beginning of polymorphic marketing . Ambiguity and ambivalency lead to choices. Harry Potter has to take many decisions during his seven years in Hogwarts and this is also something that strenghtens the identification with the character. Mystery Mystery is the third factor that explains Harry Potter's success. [...]