How to Turn Brand Fandoms into ROI at Summer Events
As brands gear up for a summer packed with activations, festivals and outdoor experiences, there's a golden opportunity that often gets missed: tapping into niche fandoms and turning their passion into measurable impact. Welcome to the wild world of enthusiast marketing, a high-conversion playground for brands that know how to play smart.
Here’s how to build ROI by showing up where your audience already is: outside, in their community and all-in on their passions.
Why Enthusiast Marketing Works
Niche communities are no longer fringe. Whether it’s retro car restorers, sneaker collectors, or drone racers, these audiences are deeply engaged and wildly influential within their circles. They're not just passive consumers, they're creators, evangelists and walking billboards.
When brands show up authentically in these spaces, the payoff is massive: higher engagement, better brand recall and real ROI.
Take a peek at DodgeGarage.com, a digital destination built by JRT for the Dodge brand that transformed car culture into content, connection and community. By combining real-time motorsports coverage, exclusive insider access and hands-on events across the country, we turned enthusiast energy into measurable engagement.
Where It Hits: Summer as Your Stage
Summer is the perfect backdrop for experiential campaigns. Think:
- Auto shows and pop-up test drives
- Music festivals with product drops
- Trade events with creator meetups
- Mobile activations that tour with seasonal circuits
These environments are built for connection. And when you layer in enthusiast culture, the result is sticky, scalable brand love.
That’s exactly what we did with the Dodge national event tour, where over 300,000 fans engaged with the brand in real life, resulting in 60,000+ display interactions, 35,000+ thrill rides and 5,000+ dealership referrals.
Your Playbook: Turn Passion into Performance
Build Community, Not Just Buzz
Create physical or digital spaces where niche audiences can gather around shared passions. Think branded lounges at festivals or fan-first Discord servers. These are your owned platforms for long-term engagement.
UGC or Bust
User-generated content isn’t just cute, it’s currency. Encourage fans to post, share and remix your brand into their world. Reward authenticity, not perfection.
Partner with the Right Influencers
Don’t choose just anyone with a ring light. Go hyper-targeted. Collaborate with creators already embedded in the culture you're trying to reach. Their credibility is your access.
Drop Exclusive Merch
Consider limited runs, location-only opportunities or collabs with artists from within the fandom. Merch becomes a badge of belonging ... and a powerful conversion tool.
the JRT agency® POV
At JRT, we live for this stuff. From mobile brand experiences to merch drops, we know how to activate superfans with purpose and precision. Our programs aren’t just flashy, they’re fully integrated, data-backed and built to scale.
From automotive to emerging tech, the principle holds: meet your people where they’re passionate and the ROI follows.
Ready to Play in the Wild?
Don’t wait for your audience to come to you. This summer, go to them with a strategy that feels personal, looks cool and delivers results.
