Harry Should Be Thankful

• Thursday, 5 August 2010
• By Sam Martin
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Letting people know about a new product or service can take the form of a number of different strategies, many of these have been discussed in prior postings, for example there are traditional forms of communication like TV, radio, billboards which continue to work very effectively for some companies and there are more contemporary forms of communication like the use of iAds in the previous blog post, youtube advertorials, and of course social media platforms like facebook, twitter and blogs. If done correctly, all of these methods will assist in your brands success but often there are large costs to contemplate.

The following is a breakdown of how Cindy Gordon and a counterpart developed a strategy on a low marketing budget to promote the “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” theme park before it’s opening.

The strategy was reliant on word-of-mouse to spread the story
The news of the new theme park was going to be told to a select bunch of rabid HP fans (Mugglenet).
Warner Bros, JK Rowling and Gordon hand selected 7 people who are behind the biggest fan sites in the world to attend a private webcast event at the HP studios.
The private meeting was conducted to bombarde the 7 fans with information about the new theme park.
The 7 fans then went and blogged about the theme park and it’s micro webpage continually over the months leading up to 2010, allowing bloggers to go to town.
These 7 fans got a combined +350 million hits. Not bad for a small budget and simple strategy.
Gordon reckons it would have been an insult and a cause of backlash to let traditional form’s of communications like the NY times introduce the new attraction, rather then an insider fan site.