What Brand are you a fan of?

Rob Walker, in his 12.28.08 NYT 'Consumed' piece, wrote that Henry Jenkins "summarized the Facebook/YouTube era as 'fandom without stigma'...It takes all the things that fans have been doing throughout the 20th century and makes them public, mainstream, commercial...the mechanisms that fans were early pioneers of have become absolutely widespread in our society, whether we're talking about early communities or social networks or participatory culture."

A key element of the fan activity Jenkins has studied is "to speak from a position of collective identity."

I'd argue the same holds true for the interactive-fueled new landscape of brand activity.

Those brands that inspire and enable self-expression, while allowing fans "to speak from a position of collective identity", will win.

'Premium' brands fast-innovating will continue to earn fans and cortical shelfspace - rational and emotional. Everyone else plays the bad ad, pricing and POS game.

What brands are you a fan of? and how do you 'live' that fandom? How do brands find their inner Star Treks, and empower their own Joan Winstons?

[per Walker, Joan W. organized the first Trek convention, in 1972. I'll drop in some hot links soon...]

Game on, Jim.

Comments

[Richard Kassissieh]

I am about to develop some "fan" features for our cousin's hat company web site. Do you have any pointers that would lead me more deeply into this topic? I am considering "fan" photos, company blog with open commenting, portable "my favorite hat" widget, and ability to bookmark favorite hats.

Richard