Does Your Brand Have Lovers?

I have been thinking a lot about fandom lately, and not just because I need to go write an opening Keynote for our upcoming summit.

Fandom has been one of the elements of the FIFA World Cup I've been having a lot of conversations with people about. The tournament turned non-sports fans into avid watchers, North American sports lovers into soccer fans (some even started calling it football), and club football fans into national ambassadors.

The layer cake of fandom intrigued me. So many people told me they "loved" the World Cup. What did they love? The underdog nation rising up? The unknown aging keeper performing miracles? The fans from around the world wearing their colours with unabashed pride? Perhaps it was the physically incomparable superstar who also had an outsized personality!? Was it learning how to row with Norway, drink with Scotland, or host like Mexico?

I know that the people I spoke with all loved it because they also tell me how much they miss it now. According to Marcus Buckingham, author of What Companies Can Learn from Their Biggest Fans, behaviour shifts from extremely positive experiences are a clear sign of a consumer loving something.

FIFA fans built an emotional connection with the tournament. A personalized one, yet one that was shared with so many. That shared experience made it even more powerful in my mind. Do brands have an emotional connection with your brand? Ana Andjelic, author of Hitmakers, is empathetic about this, stating that "Without an emotional connection, you don't have a brand."

For a brand to have love, it needs to have leaders who love the business. For a brand to have love, it needs employees who love the company. For a brand to have love, it needs customers who want to wear it on a sweatshirt. That is what Emily Weiss, powerhouse founder & CEO of Glossier, means when she claims that great "fandom looks like this" visual.

Do your leaders, employees, and customers want to wear your brand on a hat, t-shirt, phone sticker, or tattoo? Will they state their love in public? Tell other customers? Defend you when you slip up?

If so, that means there is someone out there who is obsessed with your brand. Perhaps there are thousands or millions of them. If it is your brand, consider yourself fortunate to be so loved and cared for. Your love and care are what got you here.

Activism, music, movies, sports, books, travel, food, exercise, hobbies draw an unmatched devotion. These cultural favourites provide the benchmark for the passion your brand should seek. Your brand needs to look no further than the soccer converts produced by the World Cup to see the opportunity that exists when you capture the world's attention.

Your brand needs to go beyond building a polite community and get deeply personal with passionate lovers.

MH3