Who moved my Muggle? Harry Potter and the marketing imaginarium

Abstract

According to John Grant’s New Marketing Manifesto, contemporary consumers “act their shoe size not their age” by resolutely refusing to grow up. They are not alone. Managers too are adopting a kiddy imperative, as the profusion of primers predicated on children’s literature – and storytelling generally – bears witness. Winnie the Pooh, the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and Hans Christian Andersen are the marketing gurus du jour, or so it seems. This paper adds to the juvenile agenda by examining the Harry Potter books, all four of which are replete with references to market‐place phenomena, and contending that scholarly sustenance can be drawn from J.K. Rowling’s remarkable, if ambivalent, marketing imagination.

Citation

Brown, S. (2002), "Who moved my Muggle? Harry Potter and the marketing imaginarium", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 134-148. https://doi.org/10.1108/02634500210427996