Coca-Cola Company has forged a deal with Warner Bros. to become the sole promotional partner for the Harry Potter film series. The Wall St. Journal announced that the amount Coke was paying was $150 million, but this figure includes the second and third Harry Potter films as well. Coke's Harry Potter campaign kicks off this September, two months before the film's release on Nov. 16th, and includes media buys as well as in-store displays, a literacy campaign, and special Harry Potter packaging for Coke, Hi-C, and Minute Maid products.
This deal is interesting for a number of reasons. It is rare these days that a fast food franchise is not involved in promoting a major film such as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, so the fact that Coke is the sole promotional partner on these films represents some noteworthy restraint on the part of Warner, quite possibly revealing the influence of author J.K. Rowling. Also, this is the biggest campaign of this kind that Coke has ever undertaken, so it demonstrates Coke's faith in the value of the Harry Potter franchise. Finally, the actual amount of hard media money that Coke plans to spend is fairly modest by today's standards, but this is because most of the television ads will run on children's programming, much of which is on cable or not in primetime, making it much less expensive than conventional movie television campaigns. For specialty retailers this is another sign that the Harry Potter target audience skews a little young for the traditional comic/game market (for a look at the merchandising potential of the 2001 movie season, see 'The Swami Looks at Movies').
