The New Growth Formula: Turning Customers into Passionate Fans and Creating Voluntary Communities

Have you ever had this concern? "How can we create our brand's own passionate fandom?"

This is the question circulating in every brand manager's mind these days. In the era of 'fandom economy' where a few fans move the masses, an enthusiastic support group that voluntarily spreads and grows the brand has become every brand's dream. Behind successful brands, there's always such powerful fandom.

"Consumers can stop buying, but fans never stop loving."

But haven't we been using too one-sided methods to create fans? Working hard to create content to 'inject' and holding events to 'induce' participation. True fandom grows explosively when fans play freely in the playground brands create and generate new value themselves.

Today, let's talk about the new formula for turning ordinary customers into reliable supporters—'passionate fans'—for our brand.

Why Are 'Self-Active Fans' Important?

Imagine this. While your brand's marketing team spends a month carefully creating one piece of content, fans become 'secondary creators' who create new content themselves, producing 1,000 memes, parody videos, and fan art overnight.

• Brand-led content: Requires significant cost and time. High quality, but difficult to 100% capture fans' hearts.
• Community-generated content: Costs almost nothing. Created in fans' language from their perspective, it's authentic and spreads much faster.

This is the power of 'organic communities.' Fans go beyond simply consuming IP to make friends within the community, feel belonging, and grow the brand together. Such strong 'relationships' become the most powerful adhesive that overcomes product flaws or inconveniences and prevents fans from leaving our brand.

How Can We Create 'Natural Communities'?

Forced communities quickly cool down. The key is creating a natural focal point called 'shared experience'.

Have you ever participated in a truly enjoyable concert, pop-up store, or event? You must have felt an inexplicable sense of unity with people who were passionate together that day, in that place. "Oh, that person likes the same things I do!" This momentary emotion is the most powerful seed of community.

But how can we sustain that momentary connection? This is where technology shines. Using onchain data to form communities based on 'verified experiences'. Rantan's technology stack solves this in two ways.

1. Rantan: Connecting Owners Through 'Purchase Data' Rantan technology forms communities based on onchain purchase data. It creates unforgeable digital proof of limited goods purchase history, album purchase records, etc., providing spaces where only 'verified purchasers' with these can enter.

• Example: "Information sharing channel only for Brand B limited sneaker purchasers"

2. Connecting Experiencers Through 'Attendance Data' Here, we focus on attendance data from concerts, gatherings, and events. Beyond the fact of 'buying' something, it proves the experience of 'being' at a specific time and place.

• Example: "Space where only people who attended the same concert can interact"
• Example: "Review channel only for pop-up store visitors"

This approach precisely meets the emotional need of "I want to meet again the people I met at that gathering." A special space is created where only people who breathed the same air and cheered at the same moment can gather. This is the most effective way to induce natural networking without awkward self-introductions and form strong bonds.

Ultimately, Rantan's technologies open digital hideouts for people who share the same tastes and memories with the key of 'proof of experience'. Brands just lay the 'ground,' and fans gather themselves to build deeper relationships and start creating their own culture.

Completing the Virtuous Cycle: Partnership Between IP Creators and Fan Creators

True fandom doesn't stop at consumption but leads to creation. Here we must clearly distinguish two types of 'creators': 'IP creators (primary creators)' who created the worldview and characters, and 'fan creators (secondary creators)' who love that IP, reinterpret it, and breathe new life into it.

Successful communities are completed when IP creators lay the 'ground' and fan creators play freely on it, creating new value. This symbiotic structure works as shown below.

1. Providing the Playground (IP Creators): Brands, namely IP creators, provide the foundation (IP usage rights, sources, etc.) for fans to create secondary works, creating an excellent 'playground.'
2. Creating New Value (Fan Creators): Fans become 'fan creators' who create new content such as goods, digital art, and stories by reinterpreting IP in their own style in this playground. They can also generate revenue through these activities.
3. Symbiosis and Rewards (Automated Distribution): Part of the revenue generated here automatically returns to the brand as the original creator in the form of royalties, and the largest share is paid as compensation to the fan creators who engaged in creative activities.
4. Community Growth (Reinvestment): Furthermore, another part of the revenue is accumulated as a 'fandom fund.' This fund is reinvested for the entire community, such as hosting events for the fandom or supporting other fan creators' creative work, making the ecosystem richer.

Within this structure, fans are no longer passive consumers. They become true creative partners who grow the brand with IP creators, receive fair compensation for their contributions, and nurture the community.

What Benefits for Brands?

Such fandom communities go beyond simple fan management to bring substantial business benefits to brands.

• CS and Marketing Cost Reduction: Passionate fans teach new fans how to use products, share product information, and act as voluntary CS representatives. The viral content they create becomes a more effective marketing tool than any advertisement.
• Most Accurate Feedback Channel: When there are new products or ideas, you can test them first with loyal customers who know our brand best and get honest feedback. There's no better testbed than this.
• New Business Opportunities: The powerful fandom itself becomes an attractive collaboration target for other brands. Unexpected collaborations or partnership proposals may come in.

Now, Time to Make Your Customers Partners

The era of brands owning communities is over. Now is the era where communities co-own and grow brands together.

Instead of shouting messages one-sidedly, provide a 'ground' where fans can play freely. Respect them not as mere consumers but as 'another creator,' recognize their creative activities as 'assets,' and create opportunities to grow together.

Technologies like Rantan are concrete tools that make such visions reality. If you want to make your brand a next-generation icon, you must start preparing right now to turn ordinary customers into passionate fans and reliable creative partners.