Brand indv3

Brand Management Report Individual Assignment Debashish Bagg (2010298)

Harry Potter

Brand evolution of „Harry Potter‟ over time

Submitted by: Debashish Bagg (2010298)
Under the Guidance of
Prof. Rajiv Kamble
Abstract:

This report is an analysis of strategies that have been applied by a manager; in this case author herself to
make a brand out of a character of a novel. This short report will not however be able to capture all the
nuances of strategies applied throughout the story of Potter and his friends‟ journey from an idea that
originated in a crowded train from Manchester to London to a worldwide phenomenon that resulted in
sales of more than 450 million copies by April 2011. This report however will look at different branding
strategies applied through the twists and turns in the story and how it did percolate into sales figures and
merchandizing that we see today. This study is restricted to Indian subcontinent though at many places
data and examples from the world wide phenomenon is also drawn in.
1
Page


Contents
Abstract: ........................................................................................................................................................ 1

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 3

Birth of the Brand ......................................................................................................................................... 3

Potter in India................................................................................................................................................ 3

Adaption strategy .......................................................................................................................................... 4

Brands actual catching up in Indian audience:.............................................................................................. 4

Creation of the characters: ............................................................................................................................ 5

Evolution of story/ Creating brand equity for international market: ............................................................. 5

Brand Extension or sequels of the novels: .................................................................................................... 6

Communications media used: ....................................................................................................................... 6

Marketing of the characters and story: .......................................................................................................... 7

Copyright‟s war: ........................................................................................................................................... 8

Acceptance among different customer base: ................................................................................................ 8

Other merchandise: ....................................................................................................................................... 9

Conclusions:.................................................................................................................................................. 9

Appendix 1:................................................................................................................................................. 12

1. Sales of Harry potter movies:.......................................................................................................... 12

2. Sales of competing movies for the last Harry Potter: ..................................................................... 12

3. Sales of Harry Potter movies in India: ............................................................................................ 12

4. Sales of Harry potter novels: ........................................................................................................... 13

5. Translations of Harry potter in Indian languages:........................................................................... 13

Appendix 2:................................................................................................................................................. 15

References:.................................................................................................................................................... 1
2
Page


Introduction

Let‟s begin with a few facts that were released by Warner Bros. after a week of release of
final movie installment of Harry Potter and summarized in Appendix1, 2. Harry potter sales were
far beyond the sales of any movie one an average first week revenue generation. It‟s also the
bestselling book that has encompassed the limit of 450 million by April, 2011. Was it that magic
being center story cause for potter‟s success or was it the story itself. Was Dark lord, Voldemort
being more fierce than the Darth Vader of Star Wars. Adding to above Durham University in
England is all set to run a second-year undergraduate module entitled Harry Potter and the Age
of Illusion from the next academic year. There have also been HBR cases on Marketing and
Branding that has been published on Harry potter‟s phenomenon.

Birth of the Brand

Joanne Rowling‟s (J. K. Rowling‟s) Harry Potter was born on a fine evening of 1990,
[1]
though the first few pages of the story had no resemblance to the finished book . Joanne
Rowling - lone mother, would-be writer, church-mouse poor, sitting in a local cafe for warmth,
wrote down these words from what was to be the first chapter of Harry Potter and the
Philosopher's Stone: "He'll be famous - a legend - I wouldn't be surprised if today was Harry
Potter Day in future - there will be books written about Harry - every child in our world will
know his name!". It was not until 1996 that Potter made it to print. Harry Potter was rejected by
six publishing house before Bloomsbury [1] finally accepted to publish it. Joanne [9] had to adopt
pen name (J. K. Rowling‟s) as the book name sounded like a boys' book and boys prefer books
by male authors. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won two publishing industry awards in
the year following, the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and the Booksellers'
Association / Bookseller Author of the Year.

Harry potter by 1999 has reached all English nations like UK, US, Australia. It was yet to
make it to countries that spoke languages other than English like Russia, China, and India etc.

Potter in India

India had to wait much longer to catch-up with the Potter mania. It was not until the
3
Page

release of the first movie adaptation of Harry Potter that Harry was much known in India. A


newspaper‟s research says that Harry was hardly known to many when the first installment of its
movie came to India. Indian launch of the movie was also delayed by six months for various
reasons including adaptations and retuning for specific markets. When USA and UK had a
privilege of seeking the movie from Nov, 2001, Indian audience had to wait for April, 2002.
Market reasons and mismatch of holiday seasons in the western world and India also made it to
the reason.

Adaption strategy

In 1999, Rowling sold the film rights of the first four Harry Potter books to Warner
Bros. for a reported £1 million ($1,982,900). Rowling demanded that the principal cast be kept
strictly British, but allowed for the casting of Irish actors such as the late Richard Harris as
Dumbledore, and of foreign actors as characters of the same nationalities in later
books. After extensive casting, filming began in October 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in
London, with production ending in July 2001. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” was
released in London on 14 November 2001. This was the start of the branding strategy and also
leveraging brand equity created over the years.

First two installments of Harry Potter novels were out by 1999 and made it many prizes
and recognitions. Film right of Harry Potter was £1 million while the next best competitor The
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was sold at must lower cost [2, 11]. Joanne Rowling
also command the cast being chosen on the basis of her recommendations so that they fall in line
to her novels that were yet to be written.

Brands actual catching up in Indian audience:

There was a lag that Indian audience took to catch-up with the Potter mania. A survey
done on the captured sample population of IMT recently, did bring out that most of the audience
have started to see potter movies first even before they read the books. Few more facts that came
out of this survey were as follows:

1. Movies were Harry Potter series became popular from „Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban‟, released from 2004 that filled in the special effect appetite
4

in Indian audience that was earlier nurtured by movies like „Lord of the Rings‟.
Page


2. Many of the audience did not even like to look at the prequels as they were not
heavy on special effects. Some did stick to the magic element in the movie and
went back to novels.
3. There were of course audiences that were developed by the first installment of
Potter and remained with it till the end of the series and have gone to the extent of
registering on websites like Muggle net.

The brand Harry potter was hence made popular among the Indian audience through its
movies and specifically through movies of installment beyond HP3. Changes in the adaption of
potter to keep it relevant to captured audience and leverage brand equity to grow.

Creation of the characters:

Though the characters evolved in and around England and the lifestyle there, many
changes were done in the characterization and selection of new characters to be introduced to
make the novel and movie more of global. Schools like Durmstrang Institute for Magical
Learning and Beaux batons Academy of Magic were brought in HP4 to take the novel more near
to audience of Norway and France. Characters from all over the world were introduced to
increase the adaptability of novel. There were two a character from Pakistan and one from India
introduced to cater to sub continental audience.

Evolution of story/ Creating brand equity for international market:

The story of Harry potter starts with the murder of his parents that is symbolic and in
synchronous to many of the old Indian movies that have a tragic starting and end with a happy
ending. Adding to the same it also portrays teaches of the schools that captures the imagination
of student in that age bracket. Characters like professor Snape portray a hard cored and terrifying
professor that a normal school going student face. It also shows the gamut of characters that a
student can meet in a school, a follower, a bookworm, a timid and a competitor turned foe.

Not only the panorama of characters that are presented but each of these characters is
nurtured and evolved in the novel till its end. Locations and wild life also adds to the way the
brand was created. Books about animals and plants referred in the novel are also published to
5

add to the way one can relate oneself to the story.
Page


Harry potter had a library of add on books that were released including the book of „The
Tales of Beedle the Bard‟, „Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them‟ and „Quidditch through the
Ages‟ which added to the closeness that an audience can go to the wizarding world. These were
available in India as early as 2003, which also aided to capture more audience into Potter Mania.

Brand Extension or sequels of the novels:

In parallel to the novel and movies Harry potter also had many websites some made by
fans and some for fans for various communications to happen that helped to increase the
knowhow of Harry potter. To allow spread of potter mania among fans and general public Harry
potter was licensed to be rewritten in various languages. In India alone it was licensed to 3
publishers to get the novel rewritten in six different languages. Adding to this all the harry
potter‟s translated novels were sold at much cheaper price when compared to the original ones.
Harry potter‟s novels were bundled and sold at cheaper price in India. Harry potter also had
game DVD‟s sold in many bookstores along its novels and movie adaptations.

The brand extensions did not only stop at novels and movie sequels and prequels online
and offline games but also went to the extent of formation of different theme park near Universal
Orlando Resort. A themed land named „Wizarding World of Harry Potter‟ is formed Merlin
Woods portion of the Lost Continent region of Universal's Islands of Adventure, part of the
Universal Orlando Resort. The 20-acre area includes attractions, restaurants, and shops themed
around a recreation of Hogwarts Castle and Hogsmeade Village [12].

All the extensions in terms of rewritten novels in other language and also the sequels and
prequels add to increase the brand value of patent brand.

Communications media used:

Communications of the brand harry potter was done at many platforms. This platform
was mainly internet for Indian audience. Other parts of world were exposed to communication
like theme part and also promotional trips that are undertaken by harry potter group all around
the world. The communication platform like websites did not only carry communications from
the author but also had various blogging forums for discussions that were mainly for the fans.
6
Page


Communications from the produces were basically in the form of tailors that depicted main
incidence in the movie.

To promote initially that was a campaign run in one of these websites that allowed
downloading the theme song as a ringtone. For phones that were not supported downloading
scripts of making the song were uploaded on the website.

Most of the communication of harry potter was also done on the harry potter font that re-
imposed the theme into the mind of audience. To keep the movies near to local audience Harry
potter was released in local languages. In the nation capital alone it was released in four different
languages that include English, Hindi, Bhojpuri and Punjabi. It was also released in all the
national languages in their states.

Marketing of the characters and story:

Harry potter was one of the less marketed in the initial. According to researchers and
eminent professionals like Andrew Blake [21], Brown, S. [20], and Nel. P [19] harry potter started its
promotional activities by review of existing readers and these reviews helped in spreading the
wild fire of potter mania. Word of mouth was the basic media of propagation that was initially
used and that turned out to be the most prominent media for Harry potter in its initial days.

This is partially true for Indian audience. The survey that was done regarding brand
awareness of Harry potter and how did the knowledge about it spread signals that there were an
ample of customer that were lured into by friends who were potter maniac‟s themselves. But in
the latter part of Harry potter it was the movies and special effect that played a vital role.
Translation of potter novels also added to increase in sales of potter in Indian terrain.

Potter also had the support of Facebook maniac who kept on adding pages and contest to
increase know how about the brand in Indian domain. Rowling herself has also been launching
[16] [17]
websites like Mugglenet that is presently moderated by fans and also Pottermore that
imitates the school admission to Hogwarts and thus adding to the experience of harry potter even
though the potter series is completed in terms of novels and movies.
7

One of the most marketed character for the last edition of harry potter movie and novel is
Page

Professor Snape. The debate and speculation about this character went to the extent that it finally


formulated into a series of Case publications among academicians. This was one of the most
debated topics on Mugglenet and other blogs that supported porter maniac till the last edition of
harry potter was released.

Copyright’s war:

Copyright‟s is one of the main issues that publishers and directors had to deal in the case
of Harry potter. Potter was famous to the extent that any novel that titles harry potter would have
been hotly sold. This led to many local authors write local novels that en-cashed into the brand of
harry potter. One of such novels is „Potter is Calcutta‟ [23]. Book sellers also speculate a reduction
in sales of Harry potter novels due to availability of pirated novels of the same available in the
market. Many a time‟s versions of these novels were circulated on the net.

I myself had two different copies of circulated mail and two pirated copies before I could
lay my hands on the original version of „Harry potter and the deathly hallows‟. All the five
novels discussed above had completely different stories and different ends when compared to the
original novel.

The brand image of the Harry potter in terms of movies was also tapped into by „Hari
[5]
Puttar‟ a comedy movie from the banner of Mirchi movies in India. Warner Bros. filed a
lawsuit against production company Mirchi Movies to stop the release of the film due to the
similarity of its title to that of the Harry Potter film series. An Indian court threw out the case on
the basis that the public would be able to differentiate between the two titles, and that Warner
had chosen to wait three years until the film's release to file their case.

[24]
Another movie that was almost on the same line of the first installment of „Harry
potter and the philosopher‟s stone‟ was „Aabra ka Dabra‟. Though there is no data available on
the net that denotes a possible legal communication that happened on the same, people who have
see it have found both the movies similar to each other.

Acceptance among different customer base:

In terms of acceptance harry potter had initial difficulties in many parts of the world. In
8

America and many other parts of the world Wizarding terminology was not well accepted by
Page

Christian community. There were also difference in acceptability in terms of language and its


usage. Hindi and other regional version of harry potter have no doubt increased the reach of
potter to common student but is not welcome by those who like the English version of the
product. Different customer base till date react to this adaptability in different ways.

The slangs that were used in the original novel were far more specific to England that
they could not even be repeated even to American audience. When it came to the Indian
audience who read it in local language have found no slang being used for different character.
For many other languages these terminologies were reinvented of coined with the help of
academicians. The same was not done in case of India of any Asian language.

Other merchandise:

This is also one of the not used strategies in India. There has been no merchandise that
has been supporting the brand potter in India. Movies of potter were supported by its novels and
vice versa. There was no additional push that was available in terms of theme park or
promotional activities for movies. The movies have stood challenges that were imposed by many
Bollywood and movies in local languages but without support of any other promotion.

Word of mouth and blogs of fans were the only way that helped in the popularization of
harry potter in India.

Application of Aaker’s Measure of Brand Equity:

Parameter Measure in Scale of 10
Loyalty
Price Premium 7
Satisfaction/ Loyalty 8
Perceived Quality and leadership
Perceived quality 9
Leadership in Market 10
Esteem 8
Association and Differentiation
Perceived value 9
Personality 8
9
Page

Organization (Novel and author) 10


Differentiation 8.5
Awareness
Brand Awareness 10
Market Behavior
Market Share 8
Price Distribution Indices 10
Table 1: Measure of Brand Equity of Potter in Indian sub-continent

The above matrices values are obtained on the basis the survey conducted and also on the
literature on net. This shows that the brand Harry potter though might not have been the best but
is still performing well enough on Indian soil.

Brand Report Card:

To find the areas in which Potter as a brand could have performed better, let‟s look at the brand
report cared analysis that can be done with the knowledge at hand.

Parameter Ratings Causes
Managers understanding of 10 The author who is also the manager have understand the
the Brand brand well, else it would not have formed
Positioning of the brand 9 Positioning on Indian scenario is not completely right as
Indian schooling system is different from England‟s
Customer receive superior 8 Same reason as above
delivery
Full advantage of branding 7 Brand started marketing on word of mouth too low level
and marketing activities to become a world class brand.
Also the movies and games were branding themselves
rather than coming from the same platform
Marketing and 8 Same reason
communication efforts
Pricing strategy 10 Premium pricing and customer was willing to pay
Imagery to support 10 Proper image was put forward so though there were
10

many similar and pirated novels available customer base
Page


waited for the original novel to reach India
Innovative and relevant 10 Kept the novel relevant to the customer base by keeping
Potter and his friends growing
Multiproduct and 10 Single product brand
multiband
Monitoring system 7 Copyrights were monitored not the product matching
Table 2: Brand Report Card for Harry Potter

As can be seen from above mostly the only place that Harry potter lagged was that the
translation of the novels was mere language translation rather than translation on the cultural
base of the novel. If this point could have been catered to in some sense then Potter could have
been a bigger brand than t stands today.

Conclusions:

In contrast that has been discussed so far it can be concluded that Harry Potter in India
was a brand that was left to the mercy of its fan for promotion. It also can be concluded that
word of mouth and fan blogs for evaluation can be still of great use in Indian peninsula for
promotion. Brand like harry potter was build on sheer value of the product. Branding exercise
and customization of international products to specific geographical zones is one of the needs to
the day, but some customization may eat into the brand equity. Hence a trade off may be needed
between dilution of brand equity and en-cashing of the same.

11
Page


Appendix 1:

1. Sales of Harry potter movies:
Movie Year Revenue earned on box-office
Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s (Sorcerer‟s) Stone 2001 $974,755,371
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 2002 $878,979,634
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004 $796,688,549
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 2005 $896,911,078
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 2007 $939,885,929
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 2009 $934,416,487
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 2010 $955,417,476
Table 3: Sales as per statement given out by Warner Bros (worldwide)

2. Sales of competing movies for the last Harry Potter:
Movie Weeks of release Revenue earned
Transformers: Dark of the Moon 3 $762,800,252
Kung Fu Panda 2 8 $582,063,774
Cars 2 4 $311,926,000
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides 9 $1,028,741,000
Zookeeper 2 $58,152,466
Mr. Popper‟s Penguins 5 $100,763,246
Table 4: Sales of competing movies across the world to the last installment of Harry potter

3. Sales of Harry Potter movies in India:
Movie Year Revenue earned
Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s (Sorcerer‟s) Stone 2001 10crores
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 2002 8crores
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004 11crores
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 2005 16crores
12

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 2007 26crores
Page


Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 2009 22crores
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 2010 25crores
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 2011
Table 5: Sales of Harry potter‟s franchise in India

4. Sales of Harry potter novels:
Movie Year Revenue earned
Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s (Sorcerer‟s) Stone 2001 10crores
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets 2002 8crores
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 2004 11crores
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 2005 16crores
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 2007 26crores
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 2009 22crores
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 2010 25crores
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 2011
Table 6: Sales of Harry potter‟s novels in India

5. Translations of Harry potter in Indian languages:
Language of Author Parts of the Publisher(s)/
translation series distributor(s)
Bengali Sohrab Hasan 1 Ankur Prakashani
Muniruzzaman 2, 3
Asim Chowdhury 4, 5, 6
Mohsin Habib 7
Gujarati Harish Nayak 1, 2, 3, 4 Manjul Publishing House
Jagruti Trivedi 5, 6, 7 Pvt. Ltd.
Hindi Sudhir Dixit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7
Marathi Bal Urdhwareshe 1
Priyanka Kulkarni 3
13

Manjusha Amdekar 2, 4, 5, 6
Page

Malayalam Radhika C. Nair 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,


6, 7
Urdu Darakhshanda Asghar 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Oxford University Press
Khokhar 6, 7
There has been translation into many other languages and dialects that has not been tracked.
Some of the above translation was also for neighboring countries like Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
[8]
Table 7: Translations of Harry potter in India

14
Page


Appendix 2:

[12]
Figure 1: Map of Harry Potter's wizarding world

Figure 2: Cover page of Harry potter novels in Hindi [18]
15
Page

Figure 3: Hary Puttar
Figure 4: Aabra ka Dabra; The school of Magic


References:

1. Biography of J.K. Rowling; http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/biography.cfm
2. Harry Potter page on Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter#cite_note-
Harry_falls_into_author.27s_head-45
3. Bestselling books, Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-
selling_books#cite_note-202
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 releases today;
http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-2-final-
movie/1/17035.html
5. India's Hari Puttar triumphs over Warner bros HARRY POTTER,
http://reporter.blogs.com/thresq/2008/09/indias-hari-put.html
6. Beyond Hogwarts; http://www.beyondhogwarts.com/harry-potter/news/
7. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2002/04/11/stories/2002041100350400.htm
8. Translation of Harry potter in Indian and other foreign languages,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_in_translation
9. Eccleshare, J., "The Publishing of a Phenomenon". A guide to the Harry Potter novels.
Continuum International. pp. 7–14, 2002.
10. Launch dates of Harry Potter and Philosopher‟s Stone.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0241527/releaseinfo
11. The lord of the rings page, Wikipedia;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings
12. Wizarding world theme park; http://www.officialticketcenter.com/wizarding-world-of-
harry-potter-theme-park-tickets.aspx
13. Harry potter: The complete Guide, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book:Harry_Potter
14. Tere Stouffer, „The Complete Idiot's Guide to the World of Harry Potter‟, penguin group,
2007.
15. The sphinx‟s song in 13 languages, http://www.iti.org.uk/pdfs/newPDF/HarryPotter.pdf
16. Mugglenet, http://www.mugglenet.com/
17. Pottermore, http://www.pottermore.com/
1

18. Cover pages of harry potter in different region,
Page

http://home.hccnet.nl/h.kip/kaft/page7.html


19. Nel, P.,"J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels: a reader's guide”, Continuum International.
ISBN 0826452329.2001.
20. Brown, S., "Marketing for Muggles: The Harry Potter way to higher profits". Business
Horizons 45 (1): 6–14. doi:10.1016/S0007-6813(02)80004-0, 2002.
21. Andrew Blake, “The irresistible rise of Harry Potter”, Verso publishers, London, 2002
22. Elizabeth E. Heilman, “Critical perspectives on Harry Potter”, Taylor and Frincis, 2008.
23. Wu, Tim. "Harry Potter and the International Order of Copyright." Slate. Friday 27 June
2003. Retrieved on 11 May 2009.
24. Aabra Ka Daabra, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1137434/plotsummary, 2004
25.

2
Page

Brand indv3

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Brand indv3

Similar to Brand indv3 (11)

More from Debashish Bagg

More from Debashish Bagg (19)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Brand indv3