We’re a tribal species. Always have been. We gravitate toward groups with common needs, traits, or opinions. Being part of communities gives us a sense of shared identity and belonging. To tap into this innate need, brands are beginning to foster fandoms and cultivate consumer communities in the battle for customer loyalty and advocacy.
But brands aren’t going nearly as far as they could. Acxiom’s 2025 CX trends report found a whopping 86% of consumers feel that being part of a brand community shapes their overall experience with that organization. However, only 37% of the brands surveyed have developed a fandom of any sort. Even brands that include community building in their customer strategies aren’t tapping into the full competitive advantage these fandoms make available to them.
Our report, which polled hundreds of business leaders and thousands of consumers in the U.S. and U.K., identifies the development of fandoms and communities as one of the five key customer experience trends for 2025. So, why should every brand be thinking about building these in the coming months?
Brand communities: everybody wins
The report reveals that fandoms have a lot to offer both brands and their customers. Businesses that do create engaging customer communities increase customer retention by as much as 67%, suggesting that, properly managed and motivated, these groups have the power to move the needle on some pretty important KPIs.
Members of those brand-specific customer communities report a range of benefits, too. According to those who participate in brand communities, the five most appealing aspects are:
- Connecting with like-minded people.
- Learning new things about products or services.
- Getting access to exclusive offers or discounts.
- Receiving support and advice from other members.
- Feeling a sense of belonging.
These fandoms represent far more than social groupings of people who happen to like the same products. Being part of these communities extends, enhances, and amplifies the brand experience – strengthening the customer bond with each engagement.
According to almost two-thirds (63%) of consumers, their perception of a brand is enhanced when it actively engages with its community. Improved perception helps drive further positive consumer engagements, such as product reviews or advice. Community members’ reviews can strongly influence the purchasing decisions of others, with 42% of fandom participants saying they would take action based on peer recommendations. Very quickly, we have ourselves a virtuous circle.
Given that most brands are scrambling for every tiny opportunity to gain traction over their rivals, building customer communities might just be the answer to their CX prayers.
Opportunities not yet fully grasped
These figures should be a wake-up call to all brands. The breadth of potential benefits available should propel the development of customer communities on brands’ strategic agenda. So why do so few have a fandom? According to the report, business leaders indicate the main barriers to developing brand communities are:
- Perception of high ongoing costs to maintain.
- Ability to keep members engaged long-term.
- Ability to moderate and monitor responses.
While these are legitimate concerns, the benefits from brand communities will only grow as AI flexes its generative muscles in this CX space (we’ll get to that). This means the competitive advantage gap between the community haves and have-nots will also widen.
The brands that already have customer communities can’t rest on their laurels either, as the report reveals they aren’t necessarily pursuing the full range of commercial benefits. Only 23% cite access to richer customer data as a key benefit of fandoms, for example, while just 20% say fandoms enable more effective product development.
By encouraging consumers to interact in communities, brands build insight-rich listening posts that tap directly into customer sentiment trends and preferences. Properly managed, this invaluable data can be used to tailor customer engagements, products, and offers – transforming community members into genuine brand advocates.
The AI imperative
Among the businesses that do have fandoms, less than half (49%) are using AI to support their community strategies. This might help explain why only 23% saw richer customer data as a key benefit. It’s like owning the world’s most advanced tractor and choosing to plow your fields with a horse providing the power.
As the tech matures and use cases multiply, AI and data analytics will enhance brands’ ability to scale community engagement through deeper customer insights, personalized experiences, and automated monitoring. Machine learning-based tools will enable a predictive understanding of community needs and more effective content customization while reducing operating costs.
In short, AI has the potential to take brands’ community-based competitive advantage to a whole new level and redefine the importance of fandoms to overall customer strategy. AI’s power to analyze and operationalize community insights could quickly make these communities commercial must-haves.
Read Acxiom’s 2025 CX Predictions Report, A Human-Centered Approach to Customer Experience, for more views from senior marketing professionals and consumers, along with expert guidance on how brands can use these insights to grow their business.
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