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Let’s just admit it — most brands trying to “connect with Gen Z” look like they’re fumbling around in the dark holding a 1998 brand manual, the kind written back when someone thought AOL keywords were the future of marketing.

The slogans feel clunky, the references are off by a decade, and the tone has all the authenticity of a corporate retreat icebreaker.

It’s awkward.

Painfully awkward.

Like your dad trying to say “vibes” at Thanksgiving, then glancing around the table to see if anyone claps for him.

No one does.

The problem isn’t the ambition — every marketer wants that sweet spot where relevance meets engagement. The problem is execution. They’re chasing moments that already happened, relying on stale audience buckets, and mistaking “moviegoers” or “gamers” as real targeting strategies. They’re throwing their money at broad categories while the actual cultural action is happening in very specific, very fast-moving pockets of fandom that they’re not even looking at.

While the rest of the industry has been busy congratulating itself in “crushing it” posts on LinkedIn, Fandom has quietly been building something far more powerful — the Death Star of pop culture data. And unlike in the movies, this Death Star actually knows where the rebel base is.

Sixty million pages. Three hundred thousand fan communities. Lore so deep you can lose an afternoon reading about side characters from comic panels printed before your parents met. It’s all there: every movie, every game, every show, every scrap of pop culture meticulously documented and continuously updated by people who care more about this content than some brands care about their own products.

For marketers, it’s a data gold mine. Every page, every fandom, every obscure wiki entry is a potential touchpoint. It’s not just about slapping your logo on content — it’s about finding the exact narrative thread where your brand naturally fits, and weaving it in so well that the audience doesn’t just accept you… they welcome you.

This week, I sat down with Jeremy Steinberg, Fandom’s CRO, and, frankly, one of the most delightful, funny, and wildly entertaining guests I’ve had in a long time. We didn’t just talk about the size of the platform — we dove into how to actually find the real big moments. Spoiler: your PR calendar is lying to you.

Jeremy unpacked why lazy audience targeting (hello, “moviegoers”) is the Blockbuster Video of marketing strategies, why AI is about to blow up the “open web” model, and how probabilistic targeting is uncovering bizarre but brilliant audience overlaps like Fantastic Four fans who are also obsessed with Lilo & Stitch and Baldur’s Gate. And yes… tequila makes an appearance. Obviously.

Pop culture isn’t just adjacent to marketing anymore — it’s the heartbeat of it. Get it right, and you’re part of the story. Get it wrong, and you’re the awkward brand booth no one visits at Comic-Con.

Jeremy’s playbook is simple, but not easy: marry fan obsession with brand presence so seamlessly that it feels like you’ve always been there. The secret weapon? AI-powered insight that predicts the next cultural obsession before anyone else even knows it’s coming.

If you’re serious about winning attention in 2025, you can’t just show up to the fandom party — you have to bring something worth talking about. And maybe, just maybe, a bottle of tequila.

Jeremy Steinberg doesn’t talk about data the way most adtech executives do. He doesn’t rattle off acronyms or hide behind jargon. Instead, he paints a picture — one where 350 million people wander through 300,000 different worlds each month, leaving digital footprints across 60 million pages of lore, trivia, and obsessive detail.

“We can help marketers maximize the moments that should matter to them through the lens of gaming and entertainment,” he said, explaining that the real advantage isn’t just knowing what’s popular, but knowing it before the rest of the world catches up. “If you think about it, for a marketer, it’s impossible to keep up with pop culture — it’s always changing. We have the benefit of having this amazing vantage point across all streaming, all consoles, all game devices.”

That vantage point comes to life in FanDNA Helix, Fandom’s AI-powered audience discovery platform. Steinberg says Helix doesn’t just connect obvious dots — Marvel fans liking other Marvel properties, for example — it thrives on what he calls “non-intuitive overlaps.” He lit up telling me about one: “People that like Fantastic Four are also interested in Lilo & Stitch, but also in Baldur’s Gate. You wouldn’t expect that.”

Helix starts by mining billions of interactions — wiki edits, page views, comment activity, even the subtle patterns of how fans drift between fandoms. “We’re looking at the actual movement of audiences,” Steinberg explained. “Where are they spending their time? What communities are they joining? What are they reading about?”

But what makes Helix different, he said, is its thematic and motivational analysis. “We’re not just categorizing by genre. We want to know why,” he told me. “Why would someone love a nostalgic animated movie like Lilo & Stitch and also a complex RPG like Baldur’s Gate? It could be a love for found-family stories, fantasy escapism, or transformation arcs. Those motivations are what really connect fandoms.”

Once those connections are mapped, Helix’s predictive algorithms get to work. “If we see a spike in Lilo & Stitch activity and those same profiles are spending more time in Baldur’s Gate communities, that’s a signal,” Steinberg said. “And usually, we see it before it’s obvious anywhere else.”

Unlike deterministic targeting, which locks people into fixed categories, Helix uses probabilistic modeling to predict likely behavior across fandoms. “It’s not just ‘moviegoers,’” Steinberg said with a smirk. “That’s the Blockbuster Video of targeting. People don’t live in one bucket. Fandoms are fluid. Interests change fast. You need something dynamic that reflects what motivates people right now.”

By layering behavioral, emotional, and contextual signals, Helix builds nuanced audience profiles that follow the real journeys of fans. “It’s about activating against audiences who probably will engage, even if they don’t fit the classic mold,” he said.

Steinberg is quick to point out that Helix isn’t just a research tool — it’s designed for action. “We give marketers something they can move on immediately,” he said. “You can run a campaign that reaches passionate, cross-fandom micro-audiences you wouldn’t even know existed otherwise.”

And the results, he added, speak for themselves. “We’ve seen up to 50% lifts in brand awareness, 72% increases in purchase intent. That’s not because we’re targeting broader — it’s because we’re targeting smarter, based on the connections that actually matter to fans.”

For Steinberg, the shift Helix represents is simple but radical: “We’re moving from ‘what do they like?’ to ‘why do they like it?’ And once you know the why, you can see opportunities no one else is even looking for.”

That’s how, in Fandom’s world, an unlikely overlap between Lilo & Stitch and Baldur’s Gate isn’t a curiosity — it’s marketing gold.

You care about the people behind the platforms, the weirdos building identity graphs from duct tape and nuclear compliance playbooks.

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