Loyal Fan Experience

The first time I ever bought a Coldplay album was in Bangkok. It was the early 2000s and bootleg CDs were still as easy to come by as street food actually sold on the street. The disk was a compilation of A Rush of Blood to the Head and Parachutes. I listened to it on repeat.?

In 2005 I first saw Coldplay in concert at HFStival, the now defunct Washington, D.C. area music festival. That year it was held at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore and the line-up was epic: Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Billy Idol, Garbage, Interpol, the New York Dolls. At one point, a weather advisory forced many to seek shelter at the beckon of the festival’s organisers. I stood my ground. I wouldn’t let a few clouds and thunder overhead get in my way. By the time the show recommenced, rain soaked, I’d made my way to the front of the stadium with a stupid grin plastered on my face as I basked in the glow of my favorite band.

In 2006 Coldplay had started the Asia leg of their Twisted Logic Tour. At the time, I was a summer intern armed with a stipend in Hong Kong thanks to USC's International (now "Global") Fellows program . I decided to splurge and purchase a VIP dinner and concert package with another intern. We dined like royalty, sang along to Chris Martin’s rendition of Ring of Fire, and dawdled over post-show desserts as concert goers piled onto the MRT and headed back to the main island.

Eleven years later in 2017 my Coldplay journey came full circle when I saw the band on their Head Full of Dreams tour in Bangkok. I went to the concert alone. Some might call it brave to have done so. Some might have considered it strange. In the end it didn’t matter. The fans and the atmosphere that I was surrounded by made me feel like I was in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, with exactly the right company.

I think it's pretty safe to say that my fan girl status, spanning over 16 years and multiple continents, is more or less solidified.?Now, have I always bought the band’s albums legitimately? Not quite (please don’t sue me). Have I been to all of their concerts? Hardly. Do I have a closet full of branded merchandise? Negative. Does any of this make me less of a fan? Arguably, at least in my opinion, no.

What it does highlight is the fact that fandom is not measured exclusively in spend. I remember where I was standing when I sang along to Yellow under the cloudy Baltimore skies. I remember the goose bumps and tears welling as Chris Martin dedicated Everglow to the recently departed King Bhumibol. I remember sitting in Phuket on a rock at dusk overlooking the ocean with my bootleg CD spinning in my walkman.

Fandom goes so much further than ticket sales and merchandise. It’s about emotions, and sentiment, and ultimately about memories.

This idea that fandom is connected with memories is essential when it comes to fan engagement. We as marketers often get so caught up in the conversion funnel that we forget about the real reason that fans even buy those nose bleed seats or VIP box tickets or premium price merchandise.

Now, that’s not to mean that we should ignore direct revenue streams when considering how fans engage. I have friends who would qualify as “ultra fans” who follow their favourite football team around to both home AND away games. It’s important to know this distinction so that you can offer more meaningful and ultimately more memorable interactions and experiences, tailored to each individual fans' wants and needs.

This is why fan loyalty programs that focus on a wide array of engagement activities and touch points will win out in the long term over loyalty programs that heavily or exclusively focus on ticket sales, merchandising, and any sort of purchase transaction. Spend more to get more rewards, offers, deals or discounts. It's a tried and true method, the old school definition of loyalty. And while this model works at your local supermarket or coffee shop where you purchase on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, it’s not quite the same when your fans' purchase frequency is few and far between, and the average order value amounts to drops in the ocean.

One program leaving the traditional "spend for rewards" schema in the rear view mirror is The Red Bull Racing Paddock . It’s entirely free to sign-up and is designed to reward fans for the things that they already do. I can read weekly articles, listen to podcasts, check-out factory tours or MK-7, and in a matter of weeks I may have a signed card from Checo in my hands. This is the right way to connect, to show value, and to keep that fan flame burning bright. It’s also a great way to understand your fanbase better. Their likes and dislikes, their demographic breakdown, and even their propensity for certain actions like buying merchandise, going to an event, or spreading the good word about your brand.

When you reward fans for checking in to your website, following your social media account, or reading your emails, you are capturing and rewarding that digital engagement. And when you can connect those offline interactions with the online? That's the sweet spot. Knowing if your fans were actually at that concert, if they are part of a local fan club, or if they took a stadium tour, helps you gain that elusive, but not mythical, fan 360 view. And when you have the right tools like a CDP or loyalty platform like CrowdTwist , all of this information can be gathered, centralised, and rewarded through a well-crafted fan loyalty program.

While Coldplay may not (yet) have a fan loyalty program, it's certainly something that they, and other artists, sports teams, and entertainment brands should consider. In the end, it'll help ensure that fans keep interacting, keep engaging, and keep making memories.

Are you a die hard fan of something (anything!)? Do you think a loyalty program would help you get closer to the action or keep you engaged? Are you already part of a loyalty program that you think is great? Let me know in the comments section and let's get a conversation going!