Warner Bros. is expected to announce today (Tuesday) that it has entered into an exclusive promotional pact with Coca-Cola for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone under which the soft-drink company will spend $150 million on promotions involving the movie, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Tuesday).

The program will steer away from many of the traditional marketing ploys for films aimed at kids, the newspaper observed, and will instead include such projects as a Harry Potter-inspired literacy and reading campaign this summer, prior to the film's opening in November.

A Coke spokesman said that the campaign is one of the largest in the company's history and is on the "order of magnitude" of Coke's involvement in last year's Olympic Games. Warner Bros. told the WSJ that the decision not to include a fast-food chain in the promotional campaign was made in deference to the wishes of J.H. Rowling, writer of the Harry Potter books. Warner's domestic marketing chief Brad Ball observed: "Packaging Harry Potter with a meal combo would have taken away from her philosophy."

Source: Studio Briefing