Wizard!: Harry Potter's Brand Magic [Paperback]

"Amusing and brilliant"

"The finest writer in our field today"

"My favourite book of the year...sensational."

Harry Potter may not be the biggest brand in the world, or the most venerable, but his story is one of the most dramatic. This book tells the story of the Harry Potter brand and how it has taken the entertainment world by storm.

Joanne K Rowling and her fabulous money-spinning creation is a contemporary fairytale, a 21st century version of the classic cornucopian chronicle. An impoverished single parent pens an accidental bestseller, which grows exponentially. The book begets more books, which beget movies and merchandise and huge media coverage.

Today, Harry Potter is as much a brand as Tom Cruise, Starbucks or even Heinz. In a world where corporate storytelling is the new rock ’n’ roll, it is no longer enough to tell a single story coherently – important and necessary though that is. It must be a majestic brand story, a magnificent brand story, a magical brand story.

The Harry Potter "franchise" is a fascinating story in itself, but it is a story that is woven into all the other Harry Potter stories - stories about the author, stories about the readers, stories about the nay-sayers and sceptics. This book unpicks the various narrative strands that make up the Harry Potter story, and provides a fascinating insight into how Harry Potter became one of the world’s most recognised brands in an extraordinarly short period of time.

It's the old rags-to-riches story familiar from countless soap operas, chick flicks and fairy tales. A struggling single mother manages to write a literary masterpiece in a cafe over coffee while her baby gently sleeps. The book goes unnoticed by perfidious publishers; rejection slips pour in. Just as she is about to admit defeat and return to her McJob, an astute agent spots the gleam of gold in his tottering slush pile. Leapping into action, he brokers a deal with a prestigious publishing house, and the book is duly issued without a sniff of pre-publicity or Sunday-supplement hoopla. But the public loves it, word gets around, sales take off and it climbs to the top of the charts. The once impoverished author goes on to even greater success and lives happily ever after.

Such a scenario, if pitched at a Hollywood producer, would doubtless be dismissed as too stereotyped, too schmaltzy, too Walt Disney for words, Yet that is exactly what happened to JK Rowling, the giga-selling author of the Harry Potter books. Or so the story goes. The REAL story of the Harry Potter brand - and it is a brand - is even more compelling than the fairy tale...

Stephen Brown is Professor of Marketing Research at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. He is also a Visiting Professor at Northwestern University in the US. He has written or co-edited numerous books on marketing, including Free Gift Inside!! (Wiley Capstone, 2003). His papers have been published in the Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Retailing, Business Horizons and many more besides.