Popcultr Marketing Summit Report Reveals Fandom’s Rise and the Battle for Attention

Experience12 has released the comprehensive Popcultr Marketing Summit Report for May 2025, highlighting fundamental shifts reshaping pop culture marketing across gaming, film, TV, and consumer products.

Held at MCM Comic Con London on May 23rd, the summit brought together industry insiders from ITV, Ubisoft, HMV, Fandom, Deep Silver, Bridge, Experience12 and others to share their experience and insights. The summit was attended by attendees from all aspects of pop culture marketing from Sky to Square Enix.

Key Report Findings

The complete 70-page report features six themed panels with insights from over 20 industry professionals across gaming, film/TV, strategy, partnerships, live events, and consumer products.

The summit's most striking insight: Netflix's biggest competitor is Sleep - not YouTube, the creator economy, or competing streaming platforms. Film and TV marketers now compete against every possible use of human attention, with audiences experiencing overwhelming choice paralysis when faced with thousands of content options.

Other key findings include:

• Mystery box sales surged 86% year-over-year as fans use merchandise to express personal identity in professional spaces
• 30% of Steam users now use Chinese language, representing massive untapped growth beyond saturated Western markets
• Events have evolved from campaign support to campaign anchors - physical experiences now drive entire marketing strategies
• Fans have become infrastructure, not just audience - functioning as R&D departments, QA teams, and marketing engines

Industry Transformation Accelerates

Keynote speaker Zoe Scaman unveiled 'The Fan-Industrial Complex' - where fandom has evolved from marketing afterthought to core business infrastructure. She identifies fans as now actively shaping intellectual property rather than passively consuming it.

The summit highlights that successful pop culture marketing requires:

• Recognising that time is increasingly consumers' most valuable commodity
• Harnessing the rise of fandom as a driving force in a fragmented digital landscape
• Creating ongoing cultural moments through sustained engagement rather than campaign drops
• Elevating community as a central element in the marketing mix
• Embracing an IRL event renaissance - not as part of the campaign but as THE campaign
  

Check out the report here.