Brands Enter the Fandom Multiverse: Will They Be Accepted Or Shunned?
Last month, Jodie Fullagar and Rich Barker, previously of M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment, embarked on a new journey by launching specialist creative and strategy agency Run Deep.
The offering is unique - in a world where fandoms are bigger than ever, Run Deep promises to help brands unlock their power by entering fandoms, becoming an authentic part of them and even shaping fan culture.
With investment and backing from Mother Family, Run Deep will not only be entering what Jodie and Rich call ‘giga-fandoms’ (like the Swifties), but will also be leveraging the power of micro-communities that organically occur around niche interests and are mostly found in ‘dark social’ (this basically means these tend to connect via channels like Whatsapp rather than engage in open-end social media, like Instagram or TikTok).
If we look back to 2023, during which Taylor Swift, Barbenhimer and the Women’s World Cup took the world by a storm, it’s obvious that Run Deep might really be onto something. “Fan culture drives mass culture,” says Jodie and Rich. “It has never been more important for brands to join fans. Cultural relevance equals brand currency equals consumer consideration.”
Run Deep’s specialist agency model and their STAN. tool (more on this below) will help brands navigate the divergent and somewhat paradoxical traits of this new era of fandom, “helping brands gain entry to these spaces in a respectful, authentic and value-driven way.”
But, fandoms come in all different shapes and sizes - within the huge ones there are tiny ones, and they all like, dislike or love each other. We cannot think of fandoms as a homogenous mass, which makes them difficult to pin down.
Not to mention the intersectional differences within fan cultures - there is no one-size-fits-all, as fans of the same entertainer, game, or sport tend to be totally different to each other across gender, ethnicity, country or socio-economic background. And last but not least, fans (of whatever kind) are notorious in their judgement when it comes to accepting new people within their group, let alone huge brands such as retailers or tech-giants.
So how will Run Deep crack all this? LBB’s Zoe Antonov sat down with Jodie and Rich to find out.
LBB> Jodie, Rich, congratulations on your new endeavour! To start, let’s talk about the creative pillars upon which you created Run Deep.
We are a strategy and creative agency that takes brands to the heart of fan cultures across the worlds of sport and entertainment.
We do this by putting fans at the heart of our work from insight to execution. We design authentic cultural propositions for brands, informed by the values and attitudes of fans in the communities that they are trying to reach, and deliver creative campaigns and initiatives that resonate with fans and add to their culture.
We believe the combination of sport, entertainment and cultural expertise, a fan co-development model informed by the principles of the new era of fandom, and our channel-agnostic, traditional and non-traditional creative capabilities give us a unique offer to clients.
LBB> Why ‘Run Deep’? What is the significance of the name and how does it connect to the mission?
In today’s world, emotions, connections, values run deeper than ever in fan culture, and when they get it right, brands can tap into and benefit from that deep emotion.
The expertise in our team, our wider network and our insights system, STAN., means we can literally run deep into the myriad of fan cultures big and small, to understand the different codes and behaviours of these communities which is vital for creating work that places brands authentically in these spaces.
LBB> Run Deep exists to help brands unlock “the power and influence of fans.” What does this mean to you and how do you measure the power/influence fans have? How can a brand harness that power?
Unlocking the power and influence of fans is really about two things: firstly, understanding the potential value of being authentically in culture and secondly, the deep emotion that exists in fan communities.
For brands to be authentically in culture, it requires a deep understanding of your audience and what they are passionate about, combined with a genuine commitment to being part of, and adding value to those cultures.
Fans are willing to welcome brands into their cultures, but there needs to be a value exchange. Brands need to facilitate opportunities for fans to go deeper on their fandom. By knowing what fans want, brands can bring added value to meet these needs, and by building incremental emotion, they will benefit from a transfer of this emotion.
LBB> What is the ‘fan multiverse’ and why do you believe that brands exist within a fan-led ecosystem today?
The ‘fan multiverse’ is a term we have created to explain the diversity and fragmentation of fan cultures and the co-existence of multiple realities across these cultures. For example, whilst we’re seeing a coalescence of large fan communities to create hyper massive fandoms, we’re paradoxically seeing the growth of micro sub-cultures, existing entirely on interest platforms and dark social.
Brands can exist in the multiverse, and in multiple realities according to their objectives (fame, saliency, loyalty etc), but must truly understand the fan ecosystem to avoid appropriating it.
LBB> Run Deep will work within entertainment and sport specifically - will this be just in the UK, or internationally too? What defines these spaces in the UK today, and what are the biggest and most powerful fan bases within them?
We’ll work with brands to target their audiences by identifying the fan communities within them. This means, in many ways, we’re market and region-agnostic and both global and local in our approach.
Much of culture now has a global footprint and fans from around the world can be connected through a shared love of something, but how they experience that fandom will be influenced by their local culture.
So, whilst a strategy can be global, the execution should always feel local. We will always be informed by insights into the values and experiences of fans’ cultures, subcultures, and communities at a local level
LBB> How will Run Deep work with brands to help them connect with that fan-led ecosystem and how can brands truly connect with people? Or does the point go beyond simply connecting?
At a fundamental level, the best way for brands to connect with audiences is through eliciting an emotional response. This is why connecting with fans can be so powerful, because emotions are already running high. However, just turning up in fan spaces isn’t enough. In this new era of fan culture, superficial playbooks just don’t cut it. Brands must run deep into those cultures, to understand the behaviours, codes and motivations, and then adopt these or address them, in order to be accepted.
Our strategy tool STAN. unlocks these insights to ensure brands are behaving authentically and bringing value to the culture - otherwise it’s just intrusion.
But still, this is less about tools and more about brands entering the space with a genuine commitment to reciprocal value exchange. Brands must be willing to contribute positively to a culture to earn that connection. We know from our research that the overwhelming majority of people want, or even expect, brands to help make live sport and music more financially accessible (read cheaper or free), but they also care about breaking down the other barriers to access culture.
It’s also about meeting fans where they are, not where a brand wants them to be. It sounds obvious, but where your brand turns up in culture, is just as important as what it’s saying.
LBB> Tell me about STAN. and its inner workings - how does it research fan behaviour in these enclosed fandom spaces, how does it gain access to these conversations, and ultimately, how does it synthesise its insights into workable solutions?
STAN. is an ecosystem that works symbiotically with its component parts, to provide fan insights at different stages of the development process. The nucleus of STAN is a quant and qual panel data system of real fan audiences that we can cut up according to interest groups from fans of global football clubs, to fans of EA Sports FC 24, to fans of women’s football and community football. We build on this data, with individual cultural and thought leaders and social progress experts in the respective fan areas to sense check issues, intersections and insights. We have a social impact director who also ensures our work meets our ambitions to contribute positively to the communities of these cultures
LBB> You speak of not only connecting with, but also shaping culture - how can brands do that in the spheres you’re delving into and do they do that already successfully?
The difference between connecting and shaping culture lies in facilitation and representation. A brand might connect with audiences through a celebrity-heavy Super Bowl ad, but shaping culture requires a deeper commitment to those football fans.
A good example of a brand shaping culture in the UK is Barclays through its 'Barclays Girls Football Schools Partnership'. As well as connecting to mass spectator football fans through a long-standing sponsorship of the English Premier League and more recently the Women’s Super League, Barclay's focus is on facilitating access to football at school for all girls by 2025. This will fundamentally change the pipeline of rising talent in the women’s game, and accelerate the levelling up of play and commercial value.
LBB> Tell us more about the ‘fan-centric creative development’. How will you make sure to create storytelling that speaks to community values, and how will you make sure to address all the different communities that might coexist in a certain fandom with an intersectional lens.
This is where STAN. will also help us. We have established and co-designed STAN. in partnership with Word on the Curb, a multi-cultural research business specialising in representing the experience of diverse communities. In addition to our audience data, we have a vast network of cultural and social commentators within different fan spaces and diverse identity perspectives, that we pull in for different briefs and at different stages of development.
Within our agency, we have decades of experience in placing brands authentically into fan culture, and these Run Deep guides are also passionate fans and exist within multi fan communities. It’s this combined approach that helps us understand the opportunities and approach to intersectional fandoms.
LBB> Do you believe that bringing brand voices into “genuine fan culture” will keep the fan culture genuine? Is every brand able to do this?
There are many examples where brands have been embraced by the culture, because they have contributed positively to it.
Absolut has successfully re-established its brand in the UK as a champion for marginalised voices from the LGBTQIA+ community, highlighting the challenges and experiences of these communities through joyful and celebratory campaigns, leading to the community nominating the brand for various awards.
DHL scored a breakthrough in the notoriously hostile esports space, when it created an in-game vehicle for Dota 2 that defined an authentic role in the game for DHL and spoke to the narrative and gameplay experience of the fans, resulting in the live and virtual audience chanting DHL throughout the Championship finals.
LBB> Can you expand on Run Deep’s commitment to ‘social progress’?
Sports and entertainment has the power to shape culture for the better, and we want that belief to shine through our work, but also through our agency’s cultural principles and initiatives
We have appointed a director of social impact to shape and build Run Deep’s contribution to promoting equity for fans. This will be done in part through our community fund, ‘Fandation’ which will financially support community organisations striving to provide greater access to marginalised fans.
Our STAN. system has, as mentioned above, been designed to represent all voices through our partnership with Word on the Curb and our diverse cultural collaborator network.
