Lord of the Rings does big business online

Friday, 21 December 2001, 2:31 pm
Press Release: www.hitwise.co.nz

HITWISE MEDIA RELEASE

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy movies have been a massive boost to the New Zealand economy and now the official website (www.lordoftherings.net) has been steadily rising over the past three months as anticipation grows over the Australasian premier of the first instalment this week. The site reached 164th position in the overall rankings for the week ending 15 December, its highest ever ranking, and passed Harry Potter into third place in the ‘Entertainment – Movies’ category, trailing only Village Cinemas (www.village.co.nz) and the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com).

Hitwise Click Stream data revealed that many visitors to the official movie site also ventured on to other Lord of the Rings-related websites, including The One Ring (www.theonering.net), New Line Cinema’s Lord of the Rings Official Fan Club (www.lotrfanclub.com) and the website of actor Ian McKellen who plays Gandalf (www.mckellen.com), all of which featured in the top twenty downstream sites for the week ending 15 December.

One company getting great exposure from the hype surrounding the movie is Apple (www.apple.com), which is hosting the movie trailer on its site. 6.8% of visitors to www.lordoftherings.net during the week ending 15 December went on to the Apple website to view the trailer, making it the number one downstream site from The Lord of the Rings.

Three fan sites, The One Ring (www.theonering.net), Tolkien Online (www.tolkienonline.com) and Imladris (www.lordoftheringsmovie.com), have also been performing well in recent weeks. The One Ring rose 260 places to its highest ever weekly ranking of 306th in November and Tolkien Online and Imladris also achieved their highest ever rankings.

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Media Enquiries: Paul Hashfield Ph: 021 38 38 60 paul.hashfield@hitwise.com

About Hitwise Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service giving marketing strategists, agencies and financial analysts real-time insights into the online competitive environment.

Hitwise partners with Internet Service Providers (ISPs), whose networks capture the usage patterns of individuals, covering home, work and educational use. Hitwise’s methodology is audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers and abides by the privacy legislation.

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