How To Get Unique Domaining Ideas From Books And Movies

December 7, 2008 · by Scott

Into the Wild Many of the ideas that I write about here on TrendDomaining.com are nothing more than small websites. I don’t post about huge business models or Digg-killers. I post about small sites that you can either put up yourself, or easily outsource. These often fall into a category or niche that has potential to grow, or is just under-represented on the net. And I’d like to think that most are a bit outside of the proverbial box.

This is an example of such a site.

Everyone knows that a blockbuster movie or a bestselling book can bring attention to a real life place or subject. And as a domainer, you can take advantage of it! Someone will, why not you?

When a hit book or movie emerges, the setting or plot can become popular itself. It can be a specific travel destination that people fall in love with, a particular lifestyle, or a specific object within the story. Like it or not, books and especially movies have a heavy influence on our culture. When the 101 Dalmatians movie was released by Disney in 1996, the dalmatian became a very popular breed of dog. Parents were buying dalmatians for their kids for Christmas and birthdays. Later they found that the dalmatian was not exactly a great dog for kids. This led to a huge overpopulation and abandoned dogs.

Media has that kind of effect on us. We fall in love with movies like The Dark Knight and books like Harry Potter and we just obsess over it. Sometimes to the point of altering an entire industry. I firmly believe Harry Potter is the ONLY reason why Borders and Barns & Noble are still around. Now that the series has ended, I don’t see these stores lasting with their current business model.

Anyways, this obsession often leads to tours and pilgrimages based on the locations everyone fell in love with.

Here are a few examples of popular books and movies changing an industry:

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, published in 1994. This book is generally classified as non-fiction and is based on events that happened in the 80s. It was a huge book and its fame is credited with increasing Savannah, Georgia’s tourism by 46% with an estimated $100m - $200m tourist dollars. People want to see the fascinating landmarks that were in the book.
Sideways by Rex Pickett, published in 2004. The book, and highly successful award-winning movie, follows two 40-year-old men on a trip to Santa Barbara wine country to sew their oats. Throughout the story, the main character constantly rips on Merlot and swoons over Pinot Noir. No big deal, right? Well, Merlot sales dropped 2% after the movie and Pinot Noir sales increased 16%! I find that fascinating! Beyond that, Santa Barbara’s wine country saw a significant increase in tourism, especially among younger people. SantaBarbara.com even takes advantage by pointing out that they are the beautiful location the book/movie was based on.
Lost, a TV serial drama. The show hit major heights with its exceptional writing and Hitchcockian suspense. Though no one is looking to visit the island where Lost takes place (it’s fictional, but supposedly near Fiji), they are going to Hawaii where the show is filmed so they can tour the sets. Many Lost Tours already exist, such as this.
The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Geuvara, published in 1993. It covers the early travels of the revolutionary and his friend across 8,000 miles of South America roads on a motorcycle. The book and movie inspired an enormous amount of people to travel to experience South America. Some simply just moved there. Tourism to Latin America was up 22% in the first 9 months after the book was released. Lonely Planet signed a deal with theaters to hand out travel guidebooks to moviegoers. How’s that for thinking outside the box?
Into the Wild by John Krakauer, published in 1996. This book is based on the diaries and life of a well-off college student who gives his life savings away and heads for Alaska to live a life with few material possessions. He dies at the age of 24. The cause of death is often believed to be poisonous berries or moldy seeds. Of course it’s much more than that, but I won’t go into detail here. Never read the book, but I loved the movie and especially its soundtrack. I’m not the only one, as tourism in certain parts of Alaska have doubled because of this book. Pilgrimages retracing the steps of the young man are also popular.
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, published in 2005. The book was very popular among young adults, particularly female, but the movie has skyrocketed this story into the stratosphere in 2008, even after poor reviews. So it’s safe to say that the city the story takes place in, Forks, Washington (pop 3k) has become a popular tourist destination, despite the fact that not a single scene was filmed there. But the small city isn’t the only thing that is benefiting here; vampire themed stuff, including vampire tours, are getting big too as pointed out here.
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, published 1997 - 2007. I probably don’t need to say much about this. Of course, you won’t find many of the locations in the book in real life. But there are loads upon loads of Harry Potter tours out there. All just feeding on the megaphenomena that this became.
Blair Witch Project, an independent film released in 1999. You either love it or hate it. I personally feel it was one of the most genius movies of all time, along the lines of Star Wars. It’s not just the movie, it’s the entire package. This movie built up a huge interest on the internet, something that was never done before. They somehow got the general public to believe that the film was real and actual footage. They did this by having a full website that contained interviews of REAL people who spoke about local urban legends and providing convincing police reports. Of course, the footage was not real. But they had people believing it before the release in 1999. The movie takes place near Burkittsville, Maryland. The hype and craze afterward was so huge that the sequel used the craze as the storyline. The sequel is a regular movie that takes place in the ‘real world.’ It assumes the first movie was in fact a movie, and that people went bonkers over it and visited Burkittsville. It follows a group of kids who visit the woods near the town and run into the ‘real’ Blair Witch. It was a great idea, though poorly executed.

So, is there anything coming out that may have a chance at altering an industry? I’ll take some guesses with movies:

Watchmen (following the success of Sin City and 300, this can help make graphic novel movies bump superhero movies from their popularity pedestal)
Avatar (a new way to make movies)
Sherlock Holmes (bringing back a beloved character and may have influence on England tourism for the U.S. anglophiles, who are often female… Downey Jr… Law…)
Jonas Brothers 3D Concert (3D is getting bigger and bigger, it just needs one more little push…)

Of course, there will be many other blockbusters, and I don’t think these will have as much of an impact as those I listed earlier in the article. But I think these have a good chance to somewhat directly influence another industry.

I won’t even bother with books as they are significantly harder to predict than movies.

In fact, this is a hard thing to predict in general. Since I’m guessing most people follow either books or movies or perhaps both, just keep your thinking cap on. I’ve given you examples of how to take advantage of the success in these industries, all you need to do now is recognise when it happens again and pull the trigger.

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