Anatomy of a BrandHarry Potter Brand WizardTo some, Potter-mania seems like a fad, but it contains lessons that are relevant to the entire marketing communityJuly 18, 2005Harry Potter is one of the most remarkable brand stories of recent years. So much so that there cannot be a single person anywhere who has not heard of the “boy who lived” and the bestselling books that bear his name. To date, six books in the seven-book series have been published and approximately 250 million copies have been sold worldwide. This places the young wizard third among bestsellers of all time, after The Bible (2.5 billion copies sold) and The Thoughts of Chairman Mao (800 million). JK Rowling's books have been translated into 61 different languages, including Icelandic, Serbo-Croatian, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Swahili, Ukrainian and Afrikaans, not to mention previously unpublished editions in Latin, Gaelic and ancient Greek. In addition to the books themselves, the first three Harry Potter adventures were made into live-action films by Warner Brothers, grossing some $1.6 billion at the worldwide box office and an additional $750 million in movie sales. DVDs, videos and broadcasting rights. More than 400 accessory items are also available: from candies and key chains to computer games and glow-in-the-dark glasses. The Harry Potter brand is estimated to be worth around $4 billion, and Rowling is a dollar billionaire. Not bad for someone who was a poor single parent, living on public benefits in an unheated flat in Edinburgh, less than a decade ago. As staggering as the sales figures are, the Harry Potter "effect" goes far beyond the bottom line. The entire children's book sector was invigorated by the exploits of the teenage mage: applications to boarding schools exploded in the wake of the HP phenomenon; EFL teachers say these texts are ideal textbooks for those who want to improve their mastery of the native language, as well as parents of children with learning difficulties; owls are proving increasingly popular as pets, much to the dismay of animal rights activists; locations used in films prove popular with tourists (although some sites have been reprimanded by Warner Brothers' legal department for advertising the connection); and the Potter vocabulary of "Quidditch", "Muggles", "Gryffindor", "Slytherin", "Hogwarts" and others, has become part of the vernacular. The boy wizard is Britain's greatest cultural export since the Beatles and James Bond..