Are you a fan? If so, how do you express your fandom? Have you traveled to see your favorite team or artist? Do you follow your favorite brand’s social channels, or even contribute to their products?

In this issue of Tandemonium, we’re looking at the dynamics of fandom: How consumers behave as fans, how brands are connecting with fans, even how to be a fan of yourself.  

Also in this issue:

• A TikTok shop revolt, and how to slow it
• A loud, cheering segment for travel brands
• Sharing the keys with your biggest fans
• The personal tastes of tailgate cuisine
• Brands winning on game day
• How managers can bring joy
• The joy of watching sports from home

Sports: Good for the brain

Is sitting on the couch all weekend watching football a big waste of time? Maybe not. A Japanese study tells us that regular sports viewing can re-work our brains in positive ways, and not just a reason to devour chicken wings? As brands look to build their fandoms, live communal viewing experiences are key moments of joy for consumers.

Check out the science

Do I really need to buy that TikTok shop product?  

According to some younger consumers, the answer is “no.” Financial outlets widely cover the underconsumption-core trend as a warning to brands with partnership strategies on the platform, but there’s also the hint of opportunity. As Gen-Z users seek to tune out the wall-to-wall shilling, TikTok tells us that brands can win if they connect with consumers’ yearning for joy. Strategies like “brandship,” “glimmers” and “newstalgia” can all activate joy.

Read more from TikTok  

Go for the experience

Die-hard fans have always traveled to concerts or followed their teams on the road. But with fandom increasingly becoming a part of our personal identity, Skift notes how sports travel is driving a serious growth opportunity for the travel industry. As people seek out communal gatherings – and as Taylor Swift single-handedly boosts local economies – fans have become a key segment for travel and hospitality brands.  

Show me the money

Fans: The 12^th Secret Ingredient

For years, brands have asked consumers to weigh in on product choices or even co-create experiences. But with the absurd, and sometimes helpful, hand of generative AI, consumers have unprecedented opportunities to create products, build mash-ups and share ideas on how brands can serve their customers. Our advice? Take a page from KFC Philippines and consider making some of your fans’ wildest dreams come true.

How KFC co-created fan concoctions

Bringing a taste of home to the tailgate

Last football season, we shared the glaring opportunity that brands have to connect with tailgaters. After all, the tailgate is the fan’s opportunity to participate; it’s the game before the game. And one of the main players is the food. A recent study from Chicory reveals how personal those food choices can be. More than 60% of respondents prefer to serve homemade dishes at their tailgate or “homegate” party.  

Chew on the full report

JOY IN THE WORK: Brands that are showing up in unique ways on game day

Marketing during the football season is a given for many brands, but truly innovative approaches play off fan behavior in a unique way.  

• Honeybaked Ham partnered with ESPN personality Laura Rutledge for promos and on-the-ground activations at tailgates.

• Hallmark partnered with the Kansas City Chiefs on a holiday feature film called “Holiday Touchdown.” They’re acitivating fans in perhaps the most wholesome way: doling out cups of hot chocolate at the Chiefs’ GEHA Field.

• Dr Pepper enters its seventh season of “Fansville,” a campaign based on the quirks of college football fans.  

JOY@WORK: Managing joy in the workplace

Overwhelming workloads are one ingredient in the wave of burnout in American offices. But disconnection from your purpose can be even more defeating to managers. In a recent essay in Harvard Business Review, Daisy Auger-Domínguez suggests strategies for managers to reconnect with themselves and bring joy to their workplaces in the process.

She breaks it down to four points:

• Find your why: Get back in touch with your driving force.

• Embrace beginners mind: Approach common tasks with fresh eyes.

• Sprinkle gratitude and joy like confetti: Find ways to celebrate co-workers.

• Fuel your joy: Find ways to give yourself a boost.

Read her whole perspective in HBR  

FROM THE BRAND JOY LAB: For a true football fan, nothing beats being AT the game, right? WRONG!

We asked self-described fanatics about their preferences, and overwhelmingly, home, sweet home is the preferred place to watch a game.

• Home: 74%

• Sports bar/pub: 28%

• Stadium: 18%

• Friend’s Home: 11%

Our favorite explanation? “I have no hesitation running around my yard with my shirt off screaming ‘Who Dat?!’ after we smash the Cowboys. I can go nuts freely in a way I can’t in public.”

Learn more about the reasons that, for football, there’s no place like home.  

Check out our full story