2024 has kicked off with a whirlwind of excitement for Pottermore Publishing in the Chinese market.
At Pottermore Publishing we are passionate about ensuring our catalogue of Wizarding WorldTM titles can be enjoyed by as many readers and listeners as possible. With this mission in mind, we have been working hard to grow our presence in the Chinese market by expanding our network of retailers, exploring innovative in-app features from partners, and celebrating Chinese New Year with a Red Envelope campaign.
In January, we launched our titles with a new eBook partner, WeRead, collaborating on a spectacular launch campaign that reached over 7.5 million users. The campaign included a magical out-of-home feature that ran from January 16th to 22nd, where our titles and artwork were featured on posters outside the popular Chinese bookstore Sisyphe, across 360 branches nationwide.
In the same month, we joined forces with Shanbay to prepare the eBook editions of Harry Potter 1-7 for their bilingual feature. This feature effortlessly guides readers between our Chinese and English editions, allowing fans to enjoy the magic of Harry Potter whilst brushing up on their language skills! Our in-app launch marketing campaign reached an impressive 120,000 users with an article, banner and pop-up feature.
To mark the first anniversary of our partnership with Dedao on February 22nd, the Dedao team hosted an online campaign highlighting some of the heart-warming comments from Dedao’s users. One such comment read, ‘238 hours, 998 notes, accompanied me through a tough year; I will reread this book in the future to draw strength’. Since launching with Dedao in 2022, the Harry Potter series has accumulated 62,000 readers and over 1.7 million views on the app.
Our Lunar New Year festivities came to life in February as we celebrated alongside our audiobook partner, Ximalaya, who created a spellbinding red envelope campaign. Encouraging fans to share themed, monetary gifts via WeChat, this initiative featured Harry Potter inspired digital envelopes which were distributed to 19,000 people in celebration of the Year of the Dragon.
The dedication behind expanding the reach of the wizarding world in just the first three months of the year is extraordinary. We are excited to continue this journey with all our partners in China and beyond, bringing the story of The Boy Who Lived to many more.