Superfandom: How Our Obsessions Are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are

Description

Fandom isn't a noun, it's a verb. Fans create; they engage; they discuss. Today's fans go well beyond geeks - they're equally valuable to Starbucks as to Star Wars and to Chanel as to Chelsea FC. The ubiquitous plea to 'Like us on Facebook' heralds the beginning of a new reality: consumers buy a product, but fans make a product more buyable. An essential guide to the fan-fueled future, Superfandom explores the explosion of modern fandom and its transformative impact on culture and business. In chapters centered on case studies of the world's most- admired brands, experts Zoe Fraade-Blanar and Aaron Glazer delve into the sociology and psychology of fan culture, and how it can change the way business works. The internet has given businesses ways to talk directly to their fans, hear their needs and desires, and react in real time. Never before have fans had so much clout with companies, often collaborating to design the products they want. And this cycle is only set to continue. As the authors reveal, we are entering an age of fandom convergence - one in which fan activities and communities become intrinsic to the brand experience. Practical, investigative and reflective, Superfandom is an indispensable guide to this new world.

Zoe Fraade-Blanar is a faculty member at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program and the Studio 20 program at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She is co-founder and Chief Design Officer of the crowdsourced toy company Squishable. Aaron M. Glazer is the co-founder and CEO of Squishable. Before founding Squishable, he worked as a business researcher, consultant, and journalist. He began studying non-traditional entrepreneurial models during his time at Johns Hopkins University.

Superfandom is the ultimate guide to making the most of the new fan-based economy. It presents the new way businesses interact with their customers, and it's funny, too. Read it for insights into epic failure and brilliant success in fan management, or read it for stories about the politics of Disney's Social Clubs. Either way, you won't regret it. Your fandom will be better off for it. -- Jonah Berger, Wharton Professor and bestselling author of 'Contagious: Why Things Catch On' Fans aren't just customers - they care more about what your company does, both good and bad - and no one understands how fans tick and what they can mean for a business better than Zoe and Aaron. -- Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus In a 1986 sketch on Saturday Night Live, William Shatner told a gathering of Trekkers at a Holiday Inn in Rye, New York, to "get a life...for crying out loud." A lot has happened since then. Tremendous technological transformations and online opportunities have created a complex calculus regarding the relationship between texts and brands and the people who love them. Superfandom provocatively explores this evolving relationship-with a dazzling number of examples-and describes what happens when fans don't just consume something, but influence it as well. And it's not just a celebration of the new voices now being heard in the process of the production of culture; it also describes how superfans can, on occasion, be real pains-in-the-neck. -- Robert Thompson, Trustee Professor, Newhouse School of Public Communication Director, Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, Syracuse University