Brands Tap Into Fandom as Generative AI Reshapes Expectations for Cultural Fluency

Generative AI has put brand authenticity on trial. As fake and synthetic content saturates feeds, consumers are sharpening their instincts and questioning everything they see. In that climate, audience-first marketing feels blunt and dated. Fandoms, however, carry more weight: real cultures with shared codes, memory, and standards for who belongs. Cultural accuracy is now the price of participation, and the stakes are high for the brands who miss the mark.

We turned to Michelle Edelman for an expert's take. As CEO and Chief Strategy Officer at creative-led integrated marketing agency PETERMAYER, with a career forged at industry giants like Ogilvy & Mather, her perspective is grounded in long exposure to how culture actually works. She believes that in an age saturated with artificiality, the strongest brand connections are built through culture over performance.

"A fandom is a culture. And if you don’t obey the rules of that culture, you’re out," says Edelman. "If you want to market through a fandom, you have to be part of the fandom. You have to be a fan, and you have to prove it." At the heart of her argument is the consequential difference between an audience and a fandom. But, she notes, appealing to fandoms is easier said than done.

• Brand bogey: "You need to be more careful with fandoms than you do with audiences," explains Edelman. "Audiences know you're marketing to them. They know you're trying to sell a product and they forgive you for that." But in a fandom, where nuance matters, a brand getting it wrong feels more than inauthentic. It can risk feeling downright deceptive. "Golf is such a tribe. Golfers know when they see a Nike hat rather than, say, a Callaway hat, that you're not a golfer. You might golf, but you're not a golfer."

But for brands willing to do the work of earning cultural citizenship, the return on investment can be significant. Edelman illustrates this with the difference between a beer brand's generic sponsorship announcement—which an audience accepts—and that same brand participating in the fandom's real-time conversation by complaining about a bad referee call: an act of true belonging. This level of engagement can help turn communities into powerful recommendation engines.

• The ROI of rabid fans: "Fandoms serve as acceleration engines for brand recommendations because fans absolutely influence each other's purchases. The more rabid a fan they are, the more intense that influence is. It's a great reason for brands to invest in providing the content, support, and in-real-life events that people want to participate in," notes Edelman.

A brand’s promise to its consumers, she explains, dictates how it can use AI. An audience primed for imagination may embrace the creative fantasy of a Coca-Cola campaign. The thinking is fundamentally different for experience-based brands like travel and tourism, where trust is paramount and consumers need to know they are seeing "real Michigan," not a fabricated ideal.

• Superfan saves the day: Audiences now approach content as critics, trained by their own feeds to question what’s real and who means it. Edelman says that skepticism extends beyond AI to the creator economy itself, where polish often masks performance rather than lived experience. "There are so many people labeling themselves as content creators who are truly just everyday models, and with their content you have to ask whether you’re seeing something shared from genuine experience, and a lot of times the answer is no," she says. Real cultural fluency, in her view, comes from who brands empower behind the scenes. "The best success we’ve had is hiring social media people and marketers who are also fans and excellent content creators, because they have the radar to know when to engage in a conversation and, just as importantly, when to hold back."

• Put your records on: As technology pushes relentlessly toward speed and efficiency, Edelman points to a growing pull in the opposite direction. She sees rising demand for experiences that feel tangible, deliberate, and human-made, even as tools promise faster and cheaper output. "There’s a growing phenomenon of rolling back to older technology, whether it’s vinyl or other analog formats, because these tools we’re being given aren’t necessarily better than what we had. They’re faster and less expensive, but the real question is what idea you’re trying to evoke," she says.

Edelman ultimately ties brand participation to identity itself. As people continue to redefine who they are after COVID, brand choices signal belonging, values, and self-image, which leaves far less room for error. A brand that shows real cultural understanding earns more than a transaction. It earns trust. When it misses, the response is immediate and personal. "It used to be that brands would get forgiven," she concludes. "Now, they get shown the door."