Posted by Joe Panettieri
Imagine generating worldwide headlines, driving 1.5 million visits to your Web site (in a matter of hours) and creating a media frenzy — without hosting a press conference, issuing a press release, or sending any story pitches to the media. Cynthia Gordon, VP Of New Media Partnerships at Universal Orlando Resort, did exactly that when it came time to announce a Harry Potter “Theme Park within a Theme Park.”
Gordon is among the confirmed speakers we’re working with on an upcoming event in Miami. And she has quite a story to share about Web 2.0 marketing strategies. Sure, Gordon was fortunate to be promoting two glowing brands — Harry Potter and the Universal theme parks — during a recent launch event. But it would have been easy for her to tarnish both brands with lame executive briefings. As each new promotional idea popped up, Gordon glanced at a reminder she had written on her office white board. The simple statement read: “What would J.K. Rowling do?”
“Everything we did to announce and promote the new theme park within a theme park had to be authentic to Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling’s vision,” recalls Gordon. Instead of throwing press releases and staged executive photos out on the newswire, Gordon and the Universal team cooked up a secret launch event for die hard Potter fans. Among the smartest moves: Universal and Warner Brothers Entertainment invited the seven top Harry Potter bloggers to attend a midnight Webcast announcing the park. The launch also included a carefully crafted Web site.
Within hours of the Webcast, top Potter bloggers were spreading the word about the forthcoming theme park — driving 1.5 million visitors to the Universal web site. Universal suddenly had an overnight hit on its hands, which prompted the mainstream press to jump on the coverage bandwagon.
What’s the upshot for technology companies trying to reach target audiences? Of course, few of us have platinum brands like Harry Potter and Universal to promote on the Web. But we do have our target niches. In order to determine which bloggers are most inclined to write about your company, visit Technorati.com and search specific blogger topics. If you can’t convince top-rated bloggers to write about your firm you can still do the next best thing: Post timely comments on their Web sites, and link those comments back to your own site.
Several companies — Autotask, Cisco Systems and Kaseya — use that tactic and actively post comments on our media sites. Instead of offering up pure marketing hype, the vendor comments typically enlighten our readers — and even our own bloggers.
Gordon will share additional secrets to her new media strategy during a conference in Miami this December. We’re assisting a major technology vendor with the event’s content development, and we’ll be blogging live from the event. We’ll share more details as soon as our technology partner is ready to go public with the event agenda.
