The magic of Visual Content and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Experts in branding often talk about immersive experiences. They talk about storytelling. They talk about transmedia concepts. The best brands create entire worlds for their consumers or fans to inhabit as they see fit. A place where like-minded consumers can exchange information and stories about the world they inhabit together. They help the brand create the world based on their interests and the meaningful experiences the brand delivers. Some big brands do a very good job. Niketown allows Nike fans to be inside the brand. Harley Davidson provides its fans everything they need to pretend they are Marlon Brando in the Wild One. But none of them compare to what Universal Studios has done with Harry Potter. Visual content overflows in this attraction. At 54 years old, I’m not a Harry Potter fan, but my 26 year-old daughter is. She grew up reading the books cover to cover the night they were released and then rereading them a hundred times. She owns all the DVDs and knows weird trivia like Ron’s favorite Quidditch team is Chudley. So for her birthday my wife and I met my daughter and her boyfriend at Universal Studios in Orlando to immerse ourselves into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We had been to Universal many times in the past but I hadn’t visited in about 12 years. So I missed the 2010 opening of the first phase of WWHP in Islands of Adventure. My daughter had visited the first phase and wanted to see the new part built on the Studio side.
We bought our two park passes with express line privileges at our hotel the Cabana Bay. Because we were staying at a Universal property, we were able to enter the park an hour early. We headed straight for the new phase of Harry Potter on the Studio side. As you approach the attraction you see the complete working replica of the Kings Cross Station that takes you to the other park. More about that later.
We entered through a London street scene duplicating Kings Cross Road. There is a brick wall with a whole knocked in it. When you make your way around the wall you are blown away by an incredible street scene of Diagon Alley with a fire-breathing dragon hanging of the Gringotts Bank building at the end of the street. Every shop and window features some bit of the HP experience. There is no filler, nothing is left to chance. Every nook and cranny is a well thought out, perfectly executed piece of visual content magnifying the HP mythology. I stood and watched as kids came around the corner and saw the look of wonder and excitement in their faces. Diagon Alley is going to be imprinted on them for the rest of their lives. The kids walk around in their capes waving their wands and getting a taste of what it would be like to not be a muggle.
There is an exact replica of Ollivander’s wand store where you can buy a wand for $40! Forty bucks for a piece of plastic from China! But here’s where the branding kicks in. The wand comes with a map of Diagon Alley and instructions on how to use the wand to create spells. So a kid can walk up to a storefront window and wave his wand and something magical happens. That’s one-on-one interaction between the brand and the consumer. But it goes farther than that. It’s participation. It’s open-ended. The consumer doesn’t just play the game, they are an active participant in the content creation.
The transmedia world of Harry Potter obviously started as a book, which became a series of books. Those stories created images in the reader’s minds. Those images were captured in vivid detail by the set designers of the mega hit movies. Those details were then translated into a fantasy world that amusement park visitors could inhabit. Each iteration of the content added depth and context to the story. But the best part is the visitor needs not to have seen the movies or read the books to enjoy the park.
Let’s go back to Kings Cross Station. First of all it’s the best air-conditioned space in the park. Second of all, the station is complete in every detail and when you reach the train platform you see a working carbon copy of the Hogswart Express.
The train is much more than entertainment, it serves a very practical purpose. It transports visitors from Diagon Alley on the Studios side of the park to Hogsmeade Station on the Islands of Adventure side of the park. It saves the visitors from having to go all the way back to the front gate, walk through City Walk and re-enter the other side of the park. It does it such magnificent style. It’s a very creative solution to a complicated problem. When Hogsmeade was opened in 2010, Islands of Adventure attendance went from 6 million to 7.6 million and has climbed to 8.1 million in 2014. Meanwhile Universal Studios remained relatively flat between 2010 and 2011. So the question had to be how does Universal boost the Studio side attendance? Answer, add Harry Potter. After all, it’s a movie. It belongs on the Studio side. But then how do they get visitors from one part of Harry Potter to the other? It just so happens that a train plays an integral part of the HP franchise. Universal builds a train. But not just any train. An exact replica of Hogswart Express.
That brings up another issue, the routing of the train. The tracks would have to go through all the back stage area of the park and visitors don’t want or need to see that. So the answer is to cover the windows with TV monitors and create the illusion that the visitor is being transported across the English countryside and Malfoy Manner to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry by synchronizing the video to the moving train. Not only is the window covered with a TV, your cabin door, covered with white translucent glass, is locked behind you. As the train travels across the countryside, realistically animated silhouettes of Harry, Ron and Hermione appear on the glass and the visitor can overhear their conversation in the aisle.
Even though I love rollercoasters and Hulk would be the one ride I would ride, if I could only ride one ride, the Hogswart Express is one of the most creative solutions to a business problem I have ever seen. It not only transports visitors, it generates revenue by making visitors want to buy a two-park pass. And it does it while staying completely in character with the theme of the attraction.
My takeaway is this. If your brand story is deep enough, broad enough, and rich in detail and character, you can solve any business problem with good branding. Some people say branding is the relationship between the consumer and the product. I think Universal took branding and visual content to a new level with The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Their visual mastery is a complete package of story, experience, and commerce. The level of detail makes it OK to buy a $40 plastic wand. It makes it OK to spend $250 per person to ride rides. It makes it OK for a non-fan like me to admit that the world that J.K Rowling created and movie-making geniuses brought to life and the imagineers at Universal made practical is pretty cool. Cool enough for me to buy a hat. Cha-ching. Š 2015 Engine 29, Inc. Unless otherwise noted, product names, designs, logos, titles, text, images, audio and video within this document are the trademarks, service marks, trade names, copyrights or other property of Engine 29. All other unregistered and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Nothing contained in the document should be construed as granting, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right to use any of Engine 29’s Intellectual Property displayed in the document without the written permission of Engine 29.