A Little Amazon Magic
Warner Brothers’ partnered with Amazon to support the theatrical release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. My team and I developed a social campaign that integrated one of Amazon’s most highly used, but often overlooked feature - the Amazon Search Bar.
Re-capture Potter Fans' Imaginations
Beasts was the first Harry Potter franchise film not based directly on a JK Rowling bestseller. Harry Potter had enriched children’s lives by bringing magic to them, but the last film in the series had been released five years earlier. Fans had been aging, and perhaps their sense of wonder had been pushed aside by the cares and worries of the adult world. In fact, research showed that many were no longer thinking about the brand and even felt they had outgrown it as search activity was down now since there were no films and limited buzz. Our task was to re-capture the imagination and attention of fans everywhere, and appeal not only to young children, but also those adult muggles who perhaps lost their way.
Leverage the Harry Potter Fandom
We focused on five magic spells: incendio, lumos, aguamenti, reducto, and orchideous and we hid clues in social media posts to encourage consumers to search for the spell words on the Amazon home page. To stimulate sharing, we didn’t initially tell consumers exactly how to experience the online transformations we had set up - relying on Harry Potter super fans to decipher cryptic social posts to access the secret spells. Later, we gradually revealed more and more overt clues to encourage more mainstream consumers to enjoy the Fantastic Beasts experience.