Are you a superfan? Is there a particular service, product, company, or activity in which you are unreasonably obsessed? If so, you may want to consider investing the time to read Superfandom: How Our Obsessions are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are. The reason that I read Superfandom is also the way I read Superfandom – as an audiobook from Audible. (8 hours, 27 minutes). My obsession is listening to books, which in the world of audiobooks that places me as a superfan of Audible.com. The status of being a superfan is, as Superfandom unpacks, complicated.
Author: sfandom
Marketing Daily | What’s Driving A Sense Of Ownership In The Stories We Follow?
Engagement in the participation age has evolved. Over the past few years, new online tools and platforms have emerged which have enabled communicators to more directly convey their stories, listen to their audience, and interact in more authentic ways.
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The Verge | Watching a TV show no one else likes has never been lonelier
In 2015, when Netflix debuted Bloodline, I didn’t think I was taking much of a risk by investing my time. Here was a moody crime drama set amid the lush visuals of the Florida Keys, starring Sissy Spacek, Friday Night Lights’ Kyle Chandler, Broadway legends Sam Shepard and Norbert Leo Butz, and ‘90s cult icons Linda Cardellini and Chloë Sevigny. What about this show doesn’t sound like a winning formula? Everyone, of course, would watch this show with me, I thought. It would be A Thing to watch Bloodline.
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Business Line | It’s all about hooking the buyer
A book looks at how brands go about perpetuating their existence in admiring hearts and minds
Engaging customers is one of the biggest concerns in marketing practice today. How can a brand become a part of consumers’ lives without being an intrusion is a question marketers grapple with. All the more so at a time when various surveys reveal that brand loyalty is dying. The one constant — well, almost, may be a community of diehard fans, and this is a situation marketers would do well to cultivate.
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North Star Podcast
Authors Zoe Fraade-Blanar and Aaron Glazer delve into the history, sociology and psychology of fan culture, and how it impacts business. In this episode, we talk about how the internet has changed the nature of fandom by making it a two-way conversation between fans and the people, brands, and stories that engage them. Without question, the case studies are the best part of the book.
The Business Standard | The rise of the random ‘superfan’
Superfandom How Our Obsessions are Changing What We Buy and Who We Are Aaron M Glazer and Zoe Fraade-Blanar Hachette 318 pages; Rs 499 In April, Carter Wilkerson, a teenager from Nevada, tweeted to Wendy’s, an American fast food chain: “Yo@Wendys how many retweets for a year of free chicken nuggets?” Mr Wilkerson’s tweet was probably in jest, but Wendy’s chose to humour him nonetheless: “18 million.” Mr Wilkerson’s subsequent tweet, in which he asks Tweeples (short for “Twitter people”) around the …
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Wired: How businesses can turn one-off customers into loyal fans
When does a loyal consumer become a dedicated fan? Zoe Fraade-Blanar and Aaron M Glazer, authors and founders of US toy firm Squishable, have the answers. Here’s some snippets of advice from their book Superfandom.
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Innovation Hub | The Rise Of The Superfan
Okay, yes, you might have a poster of your favorite band on your wall. But, do you follow them on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook? Do you know all the lyrics to every song? Do you have a Google alert on for their tour dates, and have you already bought tickets?
Then, you might be a superfan.
Author and entrepreneur Zoe Fraade-Blanar explains the rise of superfans.
Johns Hopkins Magazine: Book review
Squishables, the stuffed-animal company Fraade-Blanar, Engr ’02, and Glazer, A&S ’02 (BA/MA), founded in 2007, uses its online fans to develop new products. With Superfandom, the married authors explore the many ways fans—Disney World social clubs, Polaroid film loyalists, Warren Buffet enthusiasts attending Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, and more—influence the companies, products, and business culture of the objects of their fandom. As businesspeople themselves, Fraade-Blanar and Glazer don’t pause to consider the larger issues that might arise via such mass identification with commercial enterprises. That said, Superfandom deftly mixes cultural reporting into a 21st century–economy book to create an entertaining tour of obsessive brand loyalty.
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KFNN, Business for Breakfast
Full Interview: