Common Ground: The brand guide to communities and fandoms

Introducing Common Ground: The brand guide to communities and fandoms

New research we've conducted in partnership with Mumsnet, Acast, Spotify and Reach explores exploring how brands can better understand, enter and build trust within the communities and fandoms shaping culture, influence and consumer decision-making.

The report, Common Ground: The Brand Guide to Communities and Fandoms, combines multi-method research and industry expertise to create a practical playbook for brands looking to engage with communities in ways that feel relevant, credible and valuable.

The report defines fandoms as a specific type of community united by vibrant shared passion, often around popular culture, while communities more broadly are socially led groups connected by shared interests, goals or values. Increasingly, both are becoming participatory cultures, where members do not just consume content but co-create, influence one another and shape culture in real time.

Key findings:

6 in 10 people in the UK now belong to a community or fan space. And 55% of fans agree that their community or fan space is an important part of their identity. From gaming and music to run clubs, crafting, skincare, local sport, festivals and live events, the report explores how communities and fandoms develop their own language, rituals, behaviours and systems of trust. It also highlights the importance of real-world community spaces in creating belonging, with local events, volunteering, playing sports, exercise and fitness, and festivals among the spaces where people are most likely to feel part of something bigger.

Based on a nationally representative survey of 5,000 people, Common Ground sets out a three-phase framework for brands looking to engage with communities and fandoms. The first phase, “Earn the Right to Enter”, focuses on the groundwork brands need to do before showing up, from decoding a community’s language, behaviours and cultural norms to understanding who they are talking to and whether the brand has a credible role in the space.

The second phase, “Engage on Their Terms”, explores how brands can participate in ways communities are more likely to welcome. This includes being community-led rather than brand-led, meeting members where they already are, adding value rather than extracting it, and properly crediting, compensating and collaborating with the people already shaping the space.

The final phase, “Make It Last”, looks at how brands can build trust beyond a single activation or cultural moment, by supporting grassroots participation, taking consistent action and investing in long-term relationships with the communities they want to reach.

The report also identifies four broad types of consumer participation within community and fandoms: casuals, seekers, connectors and expressives. Within this group, devotees, a highly engaged subgroup who represent 1 in 10 of the most enthusiastic, engaged fans.  They are distinguished not by a single behaviour, but by the breadth and frequency of their engagement across every dimension of fan life.

Other key findings include:

• Community spaces are open to brands, but only when involvement feels relevant and valuable - 64% of community members are open to brands engaging in their passion areas as long as it is done well, rising to 85% among Devotees.

• Brand involvement can drive active support - 60% of community members say they are more likely to actively support brands that get involved in spaces they care about, rising to 83% among Devotees.

• Highly engaged community members are commercially valuable audiences - 82% of Devotees feel positive about brands and advertising messages that feature in the communities they love, while only 2% feel negatively.

• Inauthenticity remains a major risk for brands - 53% of community members say it is easy to tell when a brand’s involvement in a community is inauthentic, rising to 80% among Devotees.

Julia Ayling, UK Head of Research and Insights at WPP Media’s Mindshare said: “As communities become more influential in shaping culture, trust and purchase conversations, brands need to move beyond reach-led thinking and understand the behaviours, expectations and norms that already exist within these spaces. The strongest opportunities come when brands are clear about the value they can add, whether that means facilitating connection, supporting creativity, recognising contributors or helping a community grow on its own terms.”