The Power of Super Fans and Fandoms for Artists
It’s forever been the dream of many super fans to get close to their favorite artists, ideally to have direct interaction with them. And in fact, I’ve held a vision to foster this interactivity for at least 25 years and counting. In the mid-1990s, rocker Todd Rundgren and I launched a service called PatroNet which was designed with the notion that established artists with a following could be underwritten directly by their fans vs record labels, fostering a tighter relationship and birthing what would become known as the “artist direct-to-fan” movement.
Around the same time, David Bowie launched BowieNet and later Prince launched the NPG Music Club with the same basic premise. The problem was we were all at least a decade too early with that vision for the marketplace to embrace the model. Fast forward — and now Patreon (note the similarity to PatroNet) has flourished and is now worth an estimated $4B with a similar approach.
In fact, savvy artists are counting on super fans as the backbone of their success. Super fans are defined as die-hard loyal followers who stick with their favorite artists through thick and thin for the long term and who are highly motivated and engaged. These are the 1%ers who buy songs, tickets, merchandise, and virtually anything else their favorite artist (or sports team) chooses to make available for sale.
These fans are also de facto ambassadors and evangelists for their favorite artists — serving as enthusiastic street teams who spread the word on social media and so much more. And fandoms are a subculture of diehard super fans who share a deep passion for a specific artist, celebrity, film, book series, sports team, TV series, you name it.
Among the original Super fan groups you’d have to include Beatlemaniacs. On a more current track, there are Swifties (who follow Taylor Swift), Katy Kats (who follow Katy Perry), the Beyhive (who follow Beyonce), Little Monsters (who follow Lady Gaga), the KISS Army (obvious) — and many more. They represent one of the most interactive and engaged subcultures in the digital and social media arena, not just with their target but with each other.
This works in two directions — some fans of specific stars become intensely competitive. On the other hand, one of my clients Fave, is focused on encouraging these super fans to interact with each other — and for example, create products focused on their favorite artists — and sell them to other super fans, resulting in a cottage industry and a marketplace that creates new income streams; ideally for both the fans and for the artists at the same time. It’s a new economic model.
And of course, fans are typically not just focused on one artist or one entertainment category, but instead traverse multiple entertainment formats. These overlaps are key to developing a broader understanding of these audiences in a way that enables better ways to target and activate them strategically from a marketing perspective.
Leveraged wisely, this phenomenon then fuels an opportunity to tap into the influence this audience represents and engage them to foster greater creativity and monetization on the part of the artist like they’ve never had access to before. A recent Wall Street Journal article takes a deep dive into multiple facets, and presents a high level overview on the pluses and minuses of how this is actually playing out as it evolves.
From the artist’s perspective, there’s another powerful undercurrent at play here. That is data about super fans that can help inform an artist about everything from where they live, their age, habits, what they watch and listen to, what they care about, what they purchase, their favorite brands, and even how they respond to new songs and videos that an artist is considering releasing to the masses at large. With fans opting in to provide this data, an artist is armed with powerful information that can help them determine how to route a tour, which brands to align with and which to avoid, what merchandise is likely to sell, and even what songs are likely to be the biggest commercial hits. A recent article entitled “The Fan Data Goldmine” in Billboard goes into this facet of data analytics as it relates to super fans in greater detail.
We’re seeing wave after wave of opportunities reveal themselves like onion layers in this ever evolving relationship between artists and their super fans — the latest of which involves the explosive NFT market and micro-investments in future song royalties, among other things.
The bottom line is that the time is finally at hand in the marketplace for the fan economy to take root and to play a pivotal role for artists — they’re active, engaged, and they have both money and influence for savvy artists to leverage to their advantage. Ignore them at your peril.
