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Harry Potter Phenomenon Essay

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The Harry Potter Phenomenon
Harry Potter has become a household name throughout the years of its existence (Ernie 139) because of the publishing companies, Bloomsbury and Scholastic, that took the necessary risks. (Bristow 313). Contrary to popular belief, Harry Potter was not an instant success, especially since it had difficulty in finding a publisher (Visser and Kaai 196). What few people know is that several publishers actually rejected J.K. Rowling’s work before Bloomsbury first took a chance on it, and it took at least two years before the phenomenal novel reached the top sellers list in New York (Visser and Kaai 196). The Cinematic franchise of Harry Potter alone is worth at least 25 Billion Dollars (Wells and Fahey “The numbers are …show more content…

Although, some would say that their love for the books started with the word of mouth (Brown and Patterson 520). The Harry Potter Phenomenon was a market in itself, where the fans themselves co-created the brand with for example the music they made in which they related to their phenomenon (Brown and Patterson 525). The fans around the world loved the way the author made them feel with her words whether it be happiness or anger (Brown and Patterson 524). The Harry Potter fans are relentless when it comes to their fandom. There was even a time when Warner Brothers themselves tried to stop the fans from co-creating the brand due to legal rights and the Harry Potter fans made them back down, eventually making Warner Brothers work with them on future endeavors of Harry Potter (Brown and Patterson 526). So what actually factors in their buying behavior? It’s their love for Harry Potter that gives them intense happiness, but it’s also what the “Harry Potter Market”, Coined by Brown and Patterson, feeds on. The “Harry Potter Market” keeps the phenomenon going by selling merchandises related to the brand, making fans feel like they don’t have enough of the brand even when they do (Brown and Patterson 527). This makes the fans figuratively beg the stores to just take their money in exchange of what the “Harry Potter Market” told them they needed to feel complete (Brown and Patterson …show more content…

There had been many aspects in the Harry Potter novels that had been taken out in the cinematic universe to put audience in awe of the magical world and its objects instead (Waetjen and Gibson 1-22).The important concepts that Ms. Joanne Rowling incorporated in the story such as political and consumerism was taken out and instead focused on the never failing magical aspects of the story(Bristow 318). The cinematic universe was able to show Harry with, what was coined by Waetjen and Gibson, tangible magical objects that the audience can soon buy in stores. This was also explained by Alexandra Bristow who said “this is particularly apparent where certain artifacts of the magical consumer world invented by Rowling become produced ‘for real’, as is the case with broomsticks, wands and some sought after sweets of the Harry Potter stories” (Bristow 319). This strategy worked well for Warner Brothers. The company officially licensed to sell the merchandising and cinematic world of Harry Potter since they now have the audience longing for the things they see on the cinematic universe - hence increasing their buying behavior (Waetjen and Gibson

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