Fans as Fission—Interview with ESPRIT Chief Brand Officer Ana Andjelic
In an economy and culture flooded with brands, what makes something stick? Does the sheer size and presence of a brand give it longevity, or is there something more to the magic that makes a name a name? ESPRIT Chief Brand Officer Ana Andjelic is a sociologist-turned-branding expert who believes the building block of any successful brand is the fan. More than just a customer, the fan is someone who, as Andjelic describes them, are cultural obsessives who have as much role in the production of a brand as the actual brand itself. Delving into the blurred lines between consumption and production, Andjelic explores how fans interpret, reinterpret, and participate in shaping a brand's identity and narrative. In an era where authenticity and engagement are paramount, Andjelic's perspective underscores the significance of fostering a strong, passionate fan base to not only preserve a brand's cultural heritage but also propel it into the future.
How did your engagement with ESPRIT begin? What about this brand—be that its history or the state of the brand’s reputation when you were approached by them—made you feel this was a project you were excited to take on?
ESPRIT is one of those brands that are like oxygen. You don’t think about them, they are just there. When William Pak, the global CEO of ESPRIT, approached me, I hadn’t thought of ESPRIT in ages. I remember it of course from the 90’s, during its heyday, so my first thought was, oh what happened to them. Obviously, that was an immediate selling point for me - how to bring this legacy brand into the focus of the culture? How to move it from the status of oxygen to the status of gold, in chemical terms.
How do you define the “fan,” and why are they so central to success? What does successful engagement with fans mean?
Fans are trendsetting cultural obsessives. They have passion bordering on neediness, and thanks to it, they keep brands alive and move the culture forward. Take Japanese otakus: they turned Tokyo into a global cultural lab during the economic boom of the Japanese 80s bubble economy. Stores like BAPE, Undercover and Pink House became gathering spots for street artists, DJs, city pop clubbers, skaters, zine makers. We are seeing a similar thing with ESPRIT—GenX comes to our stores and shares their stories of growing up with ESPRIT, and GenZ does the same from a nostalgia perspective. We want to connect with our fans through both of these sentiments.
How did you develop your distinctly sociological approach toward rebranding brands? Applying an academic lens to rebranding means there must be a specific method?
Our approach is about putting knowledge in practice. It is about having an informed hypothesis and testing it. The only method is the one of strategic and creative rigor and of a laser focus. From sociology, we are taking an understanding of group dynamics, behavioral economics, how influence spreads, how trends get adopted. We always ask what people pay attention to and why, how sub-groups are connected, how by influencing one group, we influence others as well. From cultural studies we take media literacy and understanding how our culture trades in symbols, what is considered aspirational today, and how humans express their status, and what our role as ESPRIT is in all of this.
When building a rebrand project, what mechanism do you tap into? Can power be drawn from a source, such a cultural feedback loop, or do you approach things with a more ground-up approach?
We always find it useful to first understand what made a brand successful in the first place. There is a reason why certain brands become wildly popular, globally recognizable, and deeply beloved. This reason is in a brand’s DNA and in the cultural and social moment that they hit the height of their fame. Once we understand this, we focus on one core mood, vibe, or emotion that the brand owns. We distill it into a few brand pillars, and then we obsessively focus on execution within this territory that we created. Consistency, repetition, and prioritization then becomes key.
One power source for your project, as mentioned at the start of this interview, is the “fan,” be that in the form of collective fandoms, or the term you’ve coined, “FUNDOM”. How did you develop this concept, and what is your vision for achieving a successful rebranding through this concept?
It’s not enough for brands today to just have customers. In order to grow and stay relevant and exciting, they need fans. Fans watch every teaser and trailer and preview and leak and then go to Reddit to decode its meaning and bond through it with others. Fans are the biggest driver for monetizing ESPRIT’s IP, which is considerable. We treat our audience as fans, and this is where our brand power is: fans preserve the best of cultural heritage by interpreting it for the present and by making it relevant to those who’d never heard of it. Like culture guides, they tell others why to pay attention to ESPRIT.
On a more general level, fans play a central role in the modern aspirational economy, where stuff is cheap. Status comes from interpretation of culture and the resulting social capital. Fans are masters of interpretation: their goal is not to create anything new, but to interpret existing ideas, trends, styles and looks by making them slightly different than before. Fans comfortably reside in the domain of their own geekiness and play with things for fun and status in their community.
The most enduring brands are those with massive fandoms—Birkenstock, Undercover, BAPE, Drunk Elephant—their fans obsessively showcase their purchases on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
Where is the line between creative production and the fandoms of such creative production? How do creatives respond to the fandoms that are built around their creations?
There is no line, it’s a constant interpretation and dialogue and interaction. Fans and creators are often the same people, with their combination of knowledge and community. To make sure that they participate in creative production, fans cultivate a following. This fan/creator cycle is endless: fans notice and embrace trends, then reinterpret them, turning themselves into creators. The best creators are also fans of a specific aesthetic that existed before them and have deep knowledge of its heritage, like skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock, anime—it’s that dialogue between knowledge and practice that makes fans and creators one and the same thing.
How might your sociological understanding of consumer behavior and her expertise in media studies be valuable in repositioning ESPRIT and connecting with modern consumers?
We think beyond trends and look into deeper social, cultural and economic undercurrents that shape consumer preferences and influence how they spend their time and money. We look at consumers as cultural actors, as social beings and as economic entities not as “consumers,” defined through their media and product consumption. It’s an ultimately different starting point. We also don’t consider consumers as individuals, but look into their social networks: how are they connected to others? Why does it matter? How do they signal their belonging and differentiation from others? How do they form their taste? Brands are simultaneously cultural and economic entities, and their cultural role is incredibly important in the sense that they put out images and symbols, and aspirational narratives that people react to, interpret or modify. We focus on this dynamic when building ESPRIT, which itself is a study of brand building and graphic design. We are lucky to have such a rich territory mixed with pop culture.
