Fandoms, the new Era of Consumers: How to pull in new consumers by connecting to their favourite fandom.

The power of fandoms can be frightening; however, this is exactly what is needed in the world of marketing. Frequently, fandoms are often described as horrifyingly scary and obsessed individuals. In retrospect, this genre of consumer can greatly increase brand reputation and drive sales into new profit margins. They are the backbone of consumerism.

Fandoms are not afraid to purchase and support brands that collaborate or show interest in the fandoms they are part of. Fandoms can span across many different genres, from music, to movies and television, to books, to sports. There is nothing quite like fitting into a group of people who often share many similarities with you, such as morals, to clothing styles. The branding behind each fandom figurehead is often created in such a way to create a safe space for specific individuals—fans.

In recent years, collabs between brands has increased exponentially. There have been instances in the past, such as Nike’s collab with Michael Jordan, which is a perfect example of profit increases. Air Jordans in addition to other clothing merch, was released in 1985 (Mariott, 2023). By the end of the next year, Nike, who’s sales were down by 29%, received a profit of $100m due to the sales of Jordan shoes and apparel (Marriott, 2023). Basketball and Michael Jordan fans swarmed the new shoe item and to this day, Jordans are Nike’s best-selling shoe.

Brand partnerships occur frequently, such as makeup brands and makeup influencers, most notable is Morphe and James Charles, Maddie Zeigler, and Pony Constellation. Crocs is another example of a brand who frequently creates collabs with popular companies and franchises such as McDonald’s, Pokémon, and Disney. These launches are advertised very well online and generated a multitude of social media interactions, even going as far to make national news in the United States (Milliner, 2024). The initial Croc x McDonald’s collab caused enough talk on the internet that they decided to collaborate again and produce Croc Happy Meal toys, which sold out at many locations and once again made national news in the United States (Miliner, 2024). McDonald’s creates meal collabs with popular celebrities frequently, examples include Travis Scott, BTS. McDonald’s Canada even partners with sports teams such as the Raptors, and more specifically Pascal Siakam who was on the team until 2024, with the Siakam Swirl McFlurry and free medium fries if the Raptors score ten 3-pointers. The Travis Scott and BTS meals gained impressive influence on social media apps, particularly Tik Tok. Here, fans would post videos of them ordering the meals in the Drive Thru, and then playing “Sicko Mode” or “Butter respectively” (thewyen_, 2020). This caused immense engagement and drove other individuals, fans or not, to hop on the trend and purchase the items because they found the joke to be funny. Which admittedly it was.

Creating a new product based on a particular person, show, or book is not always in the budget, sometimes an agreement with the other side of the collab cannot be made. There are other methods that can be used to connect to fandoms that require less investment money. Social media is undeniably oversaturated at this point. It can become difficult to stand out or be pushed to the Explore or For You sections of apps. An easy way to ensure that your content is more likely to appear on the for you page is to direct your marketing to specific niches. Fandoms being that niche. There are many companies discovering and utilizing this method. Fans get excited that a brand is “one of them” and will like, comment, and share the post with other online friends within the community (Park, 2023). Once fandoms increase the post interactions, the social media algorithm are more likely to push future media content to more user specified homepages.

Some brands that have been using this method are Domino’s Pizza UK, posting a happy birthday message to Lee Know of Stray Kids, Nissan catered to lovers of lofi music by creating a four hour long animated video on YouTube of a girl driving a Nissan that resembles Lofi Girl from a popular YouTube channel. Finally, in various Starbucks locations, recipes will be written on chalkboards for various types of themed drinks. Starbucks is a place where consumers are free to develop their drinks however, they would like. This is not necessarily creating a new product, but still creating a connection and driving up sales that pertain to specific fandoms. This is not even mentioning the comments various large-scale brands leave on anime or celebrity edits on Tik Tok.

Ultimately, any form of collaboration with a fandom is key to driving sales, even if a new product is not produced. Social media presence and interactions can lead to sales in the absence of a physical product, like the Pokémon Crocs.

References

dominos_uki. [@dominos_uki]. (2024, October 25). hbd!!! �� #straykids #leeknow

#leeknowstraykids #leeknowbirthday #memecut #meme

https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingodeutschland/video/7392214946068565281

Marriott, H. (2023, April 8). Walking on air: How Jordan launched Nerdy Nike into the

stratosphere. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/08/walking-

on-air-how-jordan-launched-nerdy-nike-into-the-stratosphere

Milliner, C. (n.d.). McDonald’s teams up with Crocs for special Happy Meal toy. ABC

News. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Food/mcdonalds-teams-crocs-special-happy-meal-

toy/story?id=113622182

Park, H. (2024, August 13). Council post: How fandom can support your global

marketing strategy. Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescommunicationscouncil/2023/03/22/how-

fandom-can-support-your-global-marketing-strategy/

Wyen. [@thewyen_]. (2020, September 13). They said the Travis Scott Burger came to

Canada?? #traviscott

https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingodeutschland/video/7392214946068565281