The companies’ models show how community engagement and multi-generational nostalgia transform loyal audiences into lasting commercial assets, proving that building fandom is the real driver of success in licensing.
Fandom used to be a marketing afterthought — a nice-to-have layer of goodwill sitting on top of a licensed product. But with the evolution of the market, as streaming platforms and content networks compete for attention in an increasingly fragmented media landscape, it has inevitably become one of the primary currencies of licensing deals. Following their appearance on our podcast, Deep Media Pulse, we take a closer look at what it really means to harness the power of fandom, through the lens of Crunchyroll, built on one of the most engaged fan cultures in entertainment, and WildBrain, with its deep roots in family and kids’ IP. Together, they offer two very different, but equally instructive, playbooks for what it actually means to turn fandom into a licensing asset. One has grown up inside a community famous for its intensity and its willingness to follow a series from broadcast to convention floor to retail shelf; the other has spent decades learning how fandom forms differently across generations, from the child watching today to the parent who grew up with the same characters.
Understanding who the fans are, how they engage, and why their loyalty translates into commercial value has become the analytical backbone of modern licensing strategy. But what does it practically mean? According to Mitchell Berger, Crunchyroll’s EVP of Global Commerce, the generational aspect is key: Gen Z and Gen Alpha no longer consume anime as a fringe hobby relegated to the margins of popular culture. They embrace it as a primary vehicle for identity formation and community building. Anime has become mainstream media, and for digital-native audiences, it is one of the clearest ways to express who they are and connect with others who share that identity.
This shift has reshaped how Crunchyroll understands its role in the fan journey: streaming and theatrical releases are seen not as competing formats, but as complementary experiences that fulfill different emotional needs. Berger illustrated this through a simple comparison: listening to a favorite album alone through headphones and seeing the same band perform live are fundamentally different experiences, even though they can be both considered valuable. Applied to anime, this means that a fan can watch a series alone at home, enjoying a private experience and then also choose to see it again in a theater, alongside hundreds of others who share the same passion. The two experiences are not necessarily in conflict with one another.
For Erin Morris, VP of Global Franchise and Retail Strategy at Wildbrain, the strategy is also generational, but with a twist: the handoff between generations. Thanks to an approach described as “newstalgia”, which refers to updating decades-old intellectual property for new audiences while preserving what made it resonate in the first place, the company is able to ensure a whole new fandom based on the previous ones. Bringing the example of Strawberry Shortcake, now celebrating its 45th anniversary, Morris told us that after noticing that Gen Z was drawn to the character’s original 1980s aesthetic, WildBrain embraced that nostalgia by refreshing the brand’s creative direction, leading to a whole new experience for the fans.
TO WATCH THE PODCAST EPISODE WITH ERIN MORRIS AT WILDBRAIN CLICK HERE
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