What is it to be a fan? Put very simply, it is being passionate about something or someone. It can be a brand or a celebrity: what matters is that the fan has a strong emotional bond with what you are a fan of.
Becoming a fan of something can be the result of various personal and emotional reasons. Often, fans identify with the values or history of the object of their admiration, establishing a special connection with it.. Intense emotions triggered by music, art, or the message conveyed can generate fanaticism, as can the sense of belonging to a community of people with similar interests. The quality and sensitivity in the artist’s or brand’s work, along with its social or cultural impact, also play a crucial role. Ultimately, the process of becoming a fan is complex and personal and can be influenced by a combination of emotional, social, cultural and experiential factors that impact how a person connects and engages with something they find meaningful in his life.
What there is no doubt about is that Transforming consumers into fans is the dream of the vast majority of brands and celebrities. This is especially challenging in times where brands struggle to be relevant and to differentiate themselves in markets that offer increasingly convenient products and services.
Although gaining fans is not easy, Recently we were able to see in our country an unexpected evolution of the scope of “fandom”: from the historic “Sandro Babes” to Star Wars fans or the “Swifties” fans of Taylor Swift, all these groups called not to vote for one of the presidential candidates. And beyond the results, what is interesting as an emerging trend is that all these groups went beyond the passion for their idols, to feel united by shared values and encouraged to express their point of view on a political issue in the local context. Clearly, these communities not only come together to enjoy music, but also share values, codes and a strong sense of belonging. It is this emotional and social bond of being fans that becomes a platform to express opinions and defend shared values.
It is known that brands have to be able to read the context and also know the deepest needs of their consumers in order to be successful. In markets increasinglymore dynamic, it is also key that brands can adapt the link they propose to people so that they feel closer to them.
A trend that is going strong in this sense is that of the passion economy, where it is about converting emotions into commercial value. Brands that understand and spark passions create deep connections with their customers, creating not only consumers, but also fervent ambassadors for their brand. In this economy, emotion not only drives demand, but also builds different relationships between brands and consumers.
Faced with an increasingly varied and dynamic offer, where products or services can be copied with relative ease and speed, lBrands have an invaluable opportunity in the face of this evolution.on of fanaticism.
Opportunities to capitalize on fanaticism
By understanding and harnessing fan passion, brands can create marketing strategies that connect with these groups more authentically, e.g. inviting them to collaborate with the causes that the brands support, as a powerful way to engage in meaningful conversations and build genuine relationships with engaged consumers. But beware: consumers expect brands to also commit to those causes first. In fact, in the latest research from Youniversal’s TREND LAB, we found that 8 out of 10 consumers in AmErica Latina thinks that brands should be social actors and commit with various social, environmental and community causes.
In turn, today technology allows fans to become much more than that.:
- from being creators of the product they love (for example, providing ideas for new products they want to see on the market as LEGO fans did through an open chat that the brand makes available to fans to make proposals), or like the community of Nintendo fans which has developed unofficial video games based on franchises such as Mario, Zelda or Pokémon, offering new experiences and perspectives within these iconic universes.
- inspiring new brand narratives: as an example, fan fiction has proven to be a notable phenomenon in the literary field, generating creative and captivating stories that expand already established universes. A notable example is “Fifty Shades of Grey”, initially a fan fiction of the “Twilight” saga. The author, EL James, transformed the story to create a cultural phenomenon and bestseller. Another case is “After” by Anna Todd, which began as a fan fiction of the band One Direction on the Wattpad platform. This work became a successful series of novels and, later, a film.
- voting for your favorites from a list of options that the brand provides (as many brands do when inviting their consumers to choose from a list of flavors)
- or even promote the product or brand in question themselves in the manner of micro-influencers on their social networks (as in the case of the XBOX console that gave prizes to its consumers for promoting the product on their own networks).
In short, brands can harness the energy and passion of fans by giving them excuses, spaces and invitations to collaborate in the design, development, adjustment and enhancement of their offer. A world where the power to create and shape the proposal is a challenge shared by brands and consumers and where passion can be the path to emotional loyalty that is differentiating when it comes to consuming.
*Ximena Diaz Alarcon is CEO and Co-Founder of Youniversal, a consultancy specialized in market research and trends.
by Ximena Díaz Alarcón
