Coke Opens Potter Playbook
Coca-Cola Co. is ready to ride with Harry.
As exclusive promo partner for Warner Bros.’ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Atlanta-based Coke kicks off an aggressive four-part campaign in September, with some elements set to run for three years.
As promised (April PROMO), the global effort focuses on literacy and taps Coke’s kid brands including Minute Maid and Hi-C. In the U.S., Coca-Cola Supports Reading will donate libraries to 20,000 K-3 classrooms nationally. A Hi-C/Minute Maid back-to-school offer runs the through the month: Kids mail in an on-pack form to “enter” Hogwart’s, Harry’s boarding school, and get chits to buy books of their choice at retail.
“We promised Warner Bros. and [Potter author] J.K. Rowling that this would be about reading first,” says Katie Wright-Neil, Coke’s manager-consumer promotions. “New-book distribution is the biggest need.” A literacy nonprofit will help Coke find the neediest schools for donations of classics, multi-lingual, Braille, and new-title libraries. For three years, all Coke products will carry an icon that says something like, “You’re supporting book donations to schools.”
Then, an October-November sweeps called Search for the Sorcerer’s Stone will put instant-win messages on 450 million bottles and multi-packs of Coke, Hi-C boxes, and Minute Maid boxes and coolers. Gamepieces will bear icons from the film; 100 grand-prize winners find the Mirror of Erised and win a family trip to an English castle decorated like Hogwart’s. Winners play Hogwart’s students for five days, taking potion classes and playing Quidditch. Radio station tie-ins add another 160 winning families. The sweeps will run in different versions in 20 countries, with all winners convening at the castle in August 2002. Other prizes include Movie Cash gift certificates and licensed merchandise; odds of winning are one in 10.
Promo agency is Integer Group, Golden, CO. CMI, East Rutherford, NJ, executes the grand-prize trips. Ads via Leo Burnett USA, Chicago, run heaviest in October and November before the film’s Nov. 17 premiere.
In December, a Sundblom Santa Library Sweeps lets consumers nominate schools to get a library and a Harry Potter Day with a special screening and party.
Coke is sensitive about its presence in schools, says Wright-Neil: “These won’t be contour-bottle bookshelves.” Bookplates that say “Donated by the Coca-Cola Co.” will be the only corporate mark, she says.
Overlays to retailers’ own school tie-ins are being planned, as are promos for the April-May 2002 video release and the fall 2002 theatrical release of the second Potter film.
