Fantastic Franchise Marketing Tactics

My latest at Adweek is tied to last week’s Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them:

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an expansion of the Harry Potter world, one that acts as a prequel to the book and film franchise we already know and mostly love, though we should talk about Chamber of Secrets at some point. More pragmatically, it’s an opportunity for Warner Bros. to keep selling us movies based on J.K. Rowling’s work now that the Potter books that served as the source material are done.

One of the key persistent components of the Fantastic Beasts marketing campaign has been its frequent intonation of this being “From J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World,” an attempt to draw the connection between this movie and those that have come before it. Without any characters carrying over from the previous stories, there needed to be some brand continuity, and the “Wizarding World” phrasing not only brings connotations of the earlier movies but also ties in nicely with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction at Universal Studios.

Source: 3 Ways That Spin-Offs of Movie Franchises Have Been Marketed to the Audience | Adweek