Immersive experiences is the key word as of late, can you tell us more about what opportunities there are for regional brands in such a perspective?
Immersive experiences offer regional brands a compelling avenue to deepen consumer engagement by creating emotionally resonant and participatory interactions. In my recent study, I explored how such experiences transform brand spaces into meaningful narratives that reflect corporate identity and values through architectural, material, and performative elements. This strategic approach creates a sense of belonging among consumers and encourages active participation, turning passive audiences into brand enthusiasts. For regional brands, adopting similar strategies can be transformative. By weaving local culture into immersive formats, whether physical or digital, brands can stand out in an oversaturated market and cultivate lasting emotional connections. Immersive experiences could allow regional brands to communicate not just products or services, but stories and values that resonate deeply with UAE communities, especially during the Year of Community.
Lego is often used in team building exercises for companies, so what can marketers learn from such a brand?
As a certified LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator, I have seen firsthand how LEGO transcends from being just a toy to powerful medium for team building, problem-solving, and creative strategy. Marketers can learn a great deal from this. This methodology creates a playful yet purposeful atmosphere where participants collaborate, explore real-time challenges, and unlock creative potential through tactile engagement. The colorful bricks stimulate curiosity and storytelling, helping teams visualize abstract ideas and build shared understanding. This hands-on, minds-on process reflects core marketing values: participation, creativity, and emotional resonance. Most importantly, participants leave these sessions with a sense of achievement and a smile, an emotional outcome every brand aspires to create. Marketers can adopt this model by designing campaigns and brand experiences that are participatory, emotionally satisfying, and driven by curiosity, creativity, and shared value creation.
In 1981, Lego issues the now iconic ad “what it is is beautiful” with a girl constructing “something” out of the bricks. Then they went full-on gender systemic. Do you feel brands such as Lego can be “gender-specific”?
LEGO has long positioned itself as a gender-neutral, educational toy promoting creativity and skill development. However, my research shows that the brand’s gender dynamics, especially since the 1990s, reflect a more complex narrative. While the 1981 “What it is is beautiful” ad celebrated open-ended play, later strategies, like LEGO Paradisa or Friends, introduced a more gendered aesthetic. Although LEGO Group states it targets both boys and girls equally, many female fans still perceive a masculine element in themes and characters. Today, LEGO is making efforts to balance representation: female volcano explorers, pilots, and firefighters, are becoming more visible. Importantly, adult female fans challenge these “girlyfying” norms by creating empowering expressions of fandom through their creations. Gender-specific branding risks limiting creative play. Yet, when approached inclusively, it can also serve as a bridge for broader engagement. True empowerment lies in offering diverse stories, roles, and bricks for everyone to build their own identity.
Brands create fandoms which eventually give rise to communities, loyalty and at times obsession. How is this process handled, and where does it lead for the fans and the companies alike?
Brand fandoms frequently evolve into strong communities built on emotional resonance, storytelling, and participatory culture. These communities generate loyalty and a sense of belonging. My research across Europe, Japan, US, Brazil, and Mexico reveals diverse ecosystems with unique local expressions. At the center is the core fandom—a group of fans with privileged access to products, brand events, and official recognition. Their productivity and visibility are often amplified by the brand itself, making them global role models for fan culture.
However, my concept of periphery fandom introduces a critical lens: these are fan communities that exist at the margins. Members often feel distanced from the brand, with limited access to products or recognition, and a persistent sense of exclusion. Their fan practices are creative but under-acknowledged, and the fan experience can feel disempowering. Yet, these communities are also sites of innovation, resistance, and localized meaning-making. For companies, acknowledging periphery fandoms presents an opportunity to build more inclusive, globally resonant strategies. When brands engage meaningfully with all fans, not just the core, they unlock deeper loyalty, cultural relevance, and shared creative ownership of the brand.
Barbie film was one such example, but others are also in the making such as Hot Wheels. Nostalgia is a prime instigator, oddly sometimes for periods certain generations never experiences – fauxstalgia. How can brands tap into nostalgia without falling into stagnation?
Nostalgia is a powerful emotional driver. It is not just about longing for the past, but often about reclaiming something that was once out of reach. My recent presentation, Rebuilding Nostalgia, at the Popular Culture Association conference in New Orleans, focused on how adults are now revisiting their childhoods, with the toy industry seeing a surge in adult consumers buying for themselves. This isn’t merely sentimentality; it’s about identity, belonging, and creative re-engagement. Brands like LEGO and Mattel are capitalizing on this, blending nostalgia with media convergence, think LEGO movies and Fortnite integrations.
To avoid stagnation, brands must balance nostalgia with innovation. It’s not about repeating the past, but reimagining it. Companies should create layered content that speaks to longtime fans while remaining accessible and exciting for new audiences. Cross-platform storytelling, merging toys, films, and games, ensures cultural relevance and emotional resonance. Nostalgia works best when it invites both memory and imagination into play.
One of the issues about studying pop culture at large, is that it is often a domain reserved for children, yet ultimately, it is pop culture which gives us collective memory and ergo, shared experiences as adults. How to eventually explain this for audiences?
Popular culture has long been dismissed, yet it fundamentally shapes how we remember, connect, and consume. Today, fandom is at the heart of social media culture, driving trends, influencing buying behavior, and amplifying brand narratives. Fandoms are no longer passive audiences; they are active communities that generate content, set agendas, and redefine the relationship between consumers and media.
Explaining this shift means highlighting how deeply intertwined fandom is with the way we experience modern culture. On platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit, fans remix and reimagine cultural products, creating new meanings and forming online communities. These spaces fuel viral moments, create brand ambassadors, and shape market demand, often faster and more authentically than traditional marketing.
Studying fandom helps us understand how influence works today, why people care, how they engage, and what drives loyalty. Fandom reveals the dynamics of modern identity, creativity, and community-building. For brands and scholars alike, taking fandom seriously means recognizing its power to shape narratives, elevate engagement, and create long-lasting emotional connections across media and culture.
