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the subject is Marketing. 2nd Canadian edition

Lamb Chapter 4 Web Exercise

Consumer Decision Making

Vignette: The popularity of a series of books about a young boy named Harry Potter has astonished the publishing world. Warner Brothers holds the Harry Potter licenses, and released the first Harry Potter movie (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) in November 2001. Children of all ages are eager to investigate anything associated with the series.

Featured URL: www.harrypotter.warnerbros.com

Anticipation
Marketing planners need to take into account a number of things when predicting what customers will respond to. You may want to review Chapter 4 to refresh your memory about the relationship between cultural, social, individual and psychological factors and the consumer decision-making process. Essential parts of this process are need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, and postpurchase behaviour.

  1. Go to Warner Brother's Harry Potter Website. Watch the introduction, and describe the dramatic elements used to draw visitors into the site. Notice what happens when you move the mouse over the menu items. (Be sure to listen to the sound on this site. If you are using a school computer, you may need to use earphones. You will need to download Flash if it is not already on the computer. This is a free tool that can be downloaded from the Macromedia site: http://www.macromedia.com/downloads.

  2. Click on the first menu item, "Hogwarts," and submit your name as requested. Progress through the various screens to reach the "Sorting Ritual." Answer each question, submitting your answers until you are sorted. Now visit other items on the menu (Diversions, Diagon Alley, Platform 9 ¾, Daily Prophet, Wizard's Shop, Live the Magic). What aspect of the site is most appealing to you? Why?

  3. In the "Live the Magic" section you are invited to play Harry Potter and the Search for the Sorcerer's Stone game when you purchase specially marked products of Coca-Cola, Minute Maid, and Hi-C. What other tie-ins do you think would be effective in marketing Harry Potter?

  4. You can find Harry Potter products at the Warner Brothers' store and at the Wizards Shop. Are the same things available at each site? If not, why do you think not? What do you think is the marketing strategy behind having two different sites to promote the Harry Potter products. Do they target different buyers? Describe the target market for each of these two sites.

Resources

Harry Potter Official Sites

Sample Unofficial Sites (as of 2001)

Wizard of Oz

Lord of the Rings


Extend the Activity

These Web Exercises provide an additional opportunity for exploration of Chapter 4.

Cross Fertilization

1a. Investigate the cross-fertilization that is possible in marketing books, films, and related products. To this end, visit a number of sites related to publishing and/or the book market. First, visit the sites listed for the publishers in England, Canada, and the United States. Describe the differences in each site's approach to the marketing of the Harry Potter series.

Marketing Treatments
1b. Compare how the major on-line book sites sell Harry Potter books and related items. Visit both the following sites. Compare them, and point out what works most effectively at both sites. http://amazon.com vs. http://barnesandnoble.com. How do these compare with the marketing treatment the books are given on a Canadian bookseller's site? http://www.indigo.ca

Before or After
1c. Compare marketing a book or series of books based on a popular film with marketing a film that is based on a popular book or series of books. Do research to discover books that were written after the movie's success. (for example E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial .)

Spin Off Products
2. Study spinoff products for marketing strategies. Choose a comic book hero like Batman, Superman, or Spiderman, or some other character from a book, film, or television series. Compare the products available for sale on the Web for these characters with what is being marketed for Tomb Raider, which was taken from a video game to a movie.

Off to See the Wizard
3. In the 1890s in a Chicago neighbourhood, hordes of children would come to Frank Baum's house to listen to the stories he told his sons. The Wizard of Oz, based on those stories, was published in 1900 and became the biggest-selling children's book of the year. The movie, made in the 1940s in Hollywood, has become a film classic. This film has spawned a great many marketable items. Using the Wizard of Oz Websites in the Resources section, compile a list of new products that could be made available. How could these best be introduced to today's marketplace? Students could first conduct a Web search to see which products related to the book and film are currently being marketed.

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Activity Resources Extend the Activity