The clock on the official Harry Potter website (www.harrypotter.com) is now at t-minus seven days and counting till Harry the 5th hits the endcaps at Wal-Mart just in time for frenzied Muggles to stuff their stockings. Anyone who’s not been sleeping under a rock for the past seven years is intimately familiar (for better or worse) with Mr. Potter and his rocketing brooms, shifting staircases, nemesis who cannot be named, and the death and rebirth – physical, spiritual, allegorical – of our hero in a tradition umbilically attached to, yes, the Phoenix. All bundled up into one of the biggest marketing machines popular culture has seen this decade, and only rivaled by the likes of its elder Star Wars.
Coca-Cola jumped on the Hogwarts train early, paying $150 million way-back-when for worldwide sponsorship of “Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first Harry Potter movie. Notably, Coke approached AOL Time Warner with the unprecedented eight-figure licensing deal well in advance of the movie screening in theaters. This effectively put the film “in the black” with a profit of $30 million before the first ticket was sold. In return, Coca-Cola could co-brand with the “Harry Potter” logo in its packaging, advertising and promotions, but could not use any of the names or likenesses of the cast of characters.
According to Keegan and Green (2005), three principles were used to measure the viability of the licensing deal: 1) relatively equal value for both parties, whereby Harry Potter gained more worldwide exposure and Coke enjoyed a nice boost in goodwill; 2) synergies in brand value, with both brands marketing on “ideals of friendship, honesty and optimism” (their words, not mine); and 3) what they refer to as ease of understanding, meaning the two brands are a relatively natural fit together — as opposed to, say, the Marlboro Man hanging out with Ariel, our Little Mermaid. For that matter, we should probably keep him away from Hermiony, too, or at least till she’s 21.
Posted by: Colin Mangham (aka Cuthbert Von Cronkshanks via the Whomping Willow name generator)