Case Study 1 - The New Rules of Marketing Week 1 Slide 36

What did Cindy Gordon, vice president of new media and marketing partnerships at Universal Orlando Resort, did for advertising The Wizarding World of Harry Potter?

Cindy Gordon told just seven people about the new attraction and those seven people told ten of thousands. Then mainstream media listened to those tens of thousands and wrote about the news in their newspaper and magazine articles, in TV and radio reports, and in blog posts.

Gordon and her counterpart at Warner Bros. chose to launch The Wizarding World of Harry Potter by first telling the exciting news to a very small group of rabid fans. Seven people at the top Harry Potter fan sites, such as Mugglenet , were hand-selected by Gordon’s team, with Warner Bros. and Rowling herself providing input about the choices. These seven (affectionately referred to by Gordon’s team as “the AP of the HP world”) were invited to participate in a top-secret Webcast held at midnight on May 31, 2007.

Explain the term “Word-of-mouse”.

Word-of-mouse is the single most empowering tool available to marketers today which will help you create your own viral marketing strategies and campaigns.

What are the other cases of viral marketing examples mentioned in the paper? (Name the company, and state what marketing strategies that they deployed)

Steve Chazin did not follow the traditional path of seeking a job but he started a blog and wrote an e-book, Marketing Apple: 5 Secrets of the World’s Best Marketing Machine, which he offered for free. Chazin propelled himself into the world as a recognized expert on the kind of marketing used by Apple, Inc. And he instantly set himself far apart from the rest of the pack of job seekers looking for consulting work or a VP of marketing job.

Chris Greendale, a general partner at Kodiak Venture Partners gotten involved with Facebook and his Facebook friends share his ideas with their friends and colleagues to help him meet new people online.

Tim Washer, a manager of new media web video at IBM Communications did an internal self-deprecating humorous video for their sales meeting to make sense for broad sales and coporate audiences. They also included it in one of the IBM newsletters to the sales team, and that helped it to go viral. Then some bloggers picked it up and pushed it along some more. The self-deprecation softens the image of IBM with many people—it puts a human face on IBM which shows that they can laugh at themselves.