The Brand of Harry Potter

One idea that the Harry Potter books has put to bed, surely, is that children and people in general don’t read books anymore. One would think. It comes as a surprise then that a survey conducted by Teletext of a study of 4 000 Britons found that almost half of the books they bought remained unfinished. And second out of ten on the fiction list, of unfinished books, was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This book is the fourth of the seven book series. The last one in the set is due to be available on 21 July this year. The Harry Potter book shares the top ten list of unfinished fiction books with Jade Goody’s autobiography. That is a frightening thought, to have a book listed on the same list as a Jade Goody book.

This new and final book called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will have a record print run. A record 12 million copies of the book are set to be released in its first US print run. The previous six books have sold 325m world wide and have resulted in four hit films to date. Author J K Rowling has earned, according to a report on BBC, an estimated £520 million from her creation. She wrote the first book while a single mother on benefits. It’s really an American reach your dream kind of story.

However, going back to the fact that the fourth book has a high non-finish rating, and it is second on the list of top ten books not finished, one would question why the popularity of the newer releases has not dropped off. This last book will sell more than any one of the others, at least that is the prediction, and it is fairly certain that the targets will be reached.

It seems that the books themselves might not be the issue anymore. Could it be that the hype that the marketing machine has created has relegated the books themselves to the same fate as pumpkin dolls and other fad christmas toys, with other words hysteria to have one and then fairly instant neglect. The marketing machine is really interesting to observe. In December 2006 the title of the last book was announced. On February 1, 2007 the last Potter date was “unveiled” – like a statue of a famous person – and on March 28 the book cover was again “unveiled”. How well is this marketing strategy prepared? Even the royal mail is working on strategies to be able to deliver the pre-ordered copies. The previous book had a pre-order volume of half a million. For the postal service it is almost as busy a time as christmas.

The PR machine has released little snippets about Rowling having signed a plaque of some sorts in the hotel where she finished the final book and that she visited the coffee shop where she used to write when she was on benefits. Any chance she could pay the British government back for the benefits she received then? Not necessary, she has repaid that with the whopping big tax bill on her profits she must be getting every year.

There are the books, and then there is the merchandising and films that go with them. The brand Harry Potter, is something marketers the world over must watch with huge envy. This brand, only ten years old, might have a similar reach as some of the other big brands such as Pepsi for instance. Maybe its on a par with Starbucks. What has been done here with these books, has been a marketing exercise that should be studied in Graduate Business Schools. Brilliant. Well done JK Rowling. It begs the question that other creative works such as painting and sculpture, jewelry or furniture design could do with more focused marketing to create bigger markets for their creators.