# Building franchises and activating fandom
In 2019, *Avengers: Endgame* passed $2.7 billion at the global box office. But the more interesting number is 11: the count of films audiences had to watch across roughly a decade to feel the full emotional payoff of that final battle. Marvel did not sell a movie. It sold a habit.
That is the core marketing lesson of modern media: the goal is not a transaction, it is a relationship that compounds. This lesson reverse-engineers two of the most effective franchise machines of the last 20 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and Taylor Swift's Eras era, to show how you turn a one-time viewer into a decade-long revenue engine.
A hit is a spike. A franchise is an annuity.
A single blockbuster or hit album earns once, then decays. A franchise creates what marketers call a flywheel: each release markets the next one, and the audience does much of the promotion for free. The customer acquisition costcustomer acquisition costCustomer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing spend divided by the number of new customers gained in a period. It measures how efficiently you grow.Voir la définition complète → (), the money you spend to win a new fan, drops with every cycle because your existing fans recruit the next wave.
Three mechanics make this work:
Let's see how each plays out.
The MCU's real innovation was not special effects. It was architecture.
Marvel built a single continuous universe where each film both stands alone and rewards deeper knowledge. The post-credits scene became a marketing device: a 30-second teaser that converts satisfaction into anticipation for the next release. It trained audiences to stay in their seats and to come back.
Disney later extended that universe onto Disney+ with series like *WandaVision* and *Loki*, deliberately linking streaming and theatrical. A fan who watched a series was primed to buy a movie ticket, and vice versa. The story became the funnelfunnelThe customer journey from awareness to purchase, typically Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Decision, Action, with prospects narrowing at each stage.Voir la définition complète →.
The marketing principle: every asset should open a door to another asset. In a fragmented media market, you no longer control where the audience enters. Some meet a character through a meme, some through a game, some through a film. Transmedia design means every entry point leads deeper into the same world.
Taylor Swift runs the same playbook with different tools.
Her catalog is a connected narrative across "eras," each album a distinct visual and emotional world. When she launched the Eras Tour, she made the concert a retrospective across all of them, then extended it into a concert film released in theaters. Music, live show, and film all fed each other.
She is also famous for Easter eggs: hidden clues in videos, captions, and outfits that fans decode. This is transmedia storytelling as an interactive game. The audience is not watching, it is investigating, and investigation creates hours of unpaid engagement and social conversation.
People do not line up overnight for a product. They line up for an identity.
Swift's fandom (the "Swifties") has its own rituals: making and trading friendship bracelets at shows, a practice that spread organically and became a defining symbol of the Eras Tour. Marvel fans have cosplay, convention culture (San Diego Comic-Con), and endless online theory-crafting.
The marketing insight is that the community is a moat. Competitors can copy a product feature. They cannot easily copy the sense of belonging a fan feels among other fans. That belonging is what keeps someone loyal across a decade and multiple purchases.
Practical levers to build community:
For a solid primer on community-led growth, the guidance in First Round Review's community articles is a useful free resource for translating these ideas outside entertainment.
🎬 [VIDEO: "How Marvel Built A Cinematic Universe" — youtube.com — a clear breakdown of the MCU's connected-story strategy and its business logic]
Not all fans are equal, and that is the point.
A superfan tier is a set of offers priced and designed for your most devoted customers, who happily spend many times what a casual fan spends. This is disciplined price discrimination: you let each customer self-select into the spending level that matches their passion.
Picture a rough pyramid of a Swift fan:
Note that Swift is known for releasing multiple physical variants of albums (different vinyl colors, deluxe editions with bonus tracks). This is a superfan mechanic: a casual listener buys one copy or none, while a collector buys several. The product is nearly identical, but the fan's willingness to pay is not.
Marvel does the same across formats: a fan can watch a film, subscribe to Disney+, buy merchandise, visit a theme park attraction, and purchase collectibles. Each tier captures a different depth of devotion.
The rule: design the top of the pyramid on purpose. Many brands accidentally cap fan spending because they never build a premium offer. If your most passionate customers want to give you more money and cannot, that is lost revenue and a marketing failure.
Scarcity (limited variants, exclusive events) intensifies demand, but it carries risk. When Eras Tour ticket demand overwhelmed sales systems, the resulting frustration became a public story. The lesson: superfan monetization only compounds if fans still feel respected. Squeeze too hard or let the buying experience break, and you convert advocates into critics. Guard the relationship, because the relationship is the asset.
Vérification des acquis
1. The lesson describes a franchise as 'an annuity' rather than 'a spike.' What core distinction is this metaphor drawing?
2. Why does customer acquisition cost (CAC) tend to fall with each cycle of a successful franchise flywheel?
3. The lesson frames the MCU's post-credits scene as a 'marketing device.' What underlying principle does it best illustrate?
4. Select ALL correct answers. Which of the following are core mechanics the lesson identifies as making the franchise flywheel work?
Sélectionnez toutes les réponses correctes.
5. Select ALL correct answers. Based on the lesson, which statements accurately capture the concept of transmedia storytelling?
Sélectionnez toutes les réponses correctes.
Here is how the three mechanics combine into one compounding system.
1. A strong entry story pulls in a new viewer (a first film, a breakout single).
2. Transmedia design gives that viewer another door: a series, a tour, an Easter egg to decode.
3. Community turns repeat consumption into identity, so the fan recruits others and stays for years.
4. Superfan tiers capture the rising willingness to pay from the most devoted, funding the next entry story.
Each turn of the wheel lowers acquisition costacquisition costCustomer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing spend divided by the number of new customers gained in a period. It measures how efficiently you grow.Voir la définition complète → (fans market for you) and raises lifetime valuelifetime valueLifetime Value: the total revenue (or profit) a customer generates throughout their entire relationship with your business.Voir la définition complète → (fans spend across tiers over years). That is why a decade of connected Marvel films or a career-spanning Swift catalog produces revenue that a single hit never could.
You do not need a $200 million budget. The structure scales down:
The pattern is identical. Franchise thinking is a marketing discipline, not a budget.