In 1985, Freddie Mercury walked out in front of 72,000 people at Wembley Stadium and, within about four minutes, had the entire crowd in the palm of his hand.
Not because of the setlist. Not the lights, the staging, or the pyrotechnics.
Because Freddie understood something that most performers, and most marketers, fundamentally don’t.
He knew who he was performing for.
Not in a vague “our audience is people who like rock music” way. In a visceral, deeply human way. He knew what his front row needed from him in that moment. He knew they would give him everything if he gave everything back. He made 72,000 people feel like he was singing directly to them.
And they came back.
Every city.
Every tour.
Every album, even the ones that sucked a little, they’d buy it.
Not because Freddie sold them on the cheap, or because there was a free T-shirt after five purchases. Why? Not because it’s a kind of magic.
Because Freddie made them feel known.
Now, playing in front of 72,000 people may sound like a daunting prospect, but consider how many people you play to every day. Millions. Amongst that crowd, can you truly point to your loyal fanbase?
The one who has been coming back, week after week, for the last two years. Who knows the menu. Who has a regular order and a preferred time of day. Who has chosen you, quietly and consistently, over every other option available to them. Who will still buy even if it’s just your greatest hits.
Do they know that you know that?
Because most brands treat that person exactly the same as someone who visited once, claimed a welcome offer, and hasn’t been seen since.
Same campaign. Same discount. Same message to a million people on the same Tuesday morning.
47% of customers never return after their first visit. The ones who do keep coming back aren’t just loyal. They’re genuinely rare. And they deserve considerably better than being filed under “the list.”
It really is a kind of magic when a brand gets this right. The problem is, most don’t. Not because they don’t want to. Because they can’t see their front row clearly enough to play to it.
At Braze City x City last week, we shared something we’ve been building with our clients called the Superfan System. It’s a three-step way of using Braze and Snowflake to do what Freddie did instinctively. At scale, with data, although the jumpsuit is optional.
Step 1: Identify who matters most
The first problem most brands have isn’t the data. It’s the visibility.
POS data lives in one place. App data lives somewhere else. Loyalty is in a third system. Kiosk, delivery, in-store, all separate. Viewed channel by channel, you see fragments, but if you joined this together in Snowflake, you start to see people.
And within those people, you find your front row.
The regulars who drive disproportionate revenue. The almost-superfans who visit twice a month but could easily be visiting four times. The customers who are one genuinely relevant moment away from becoming the kind of loyal that you can actually build a business on.
McDonald’s loyalty members visit 148% more often after enrolment. That number doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because someone decided to look past the aggregate and find the people who matter most.
Once you can see your front row clearly, you stop treating 72,000 people like one undifferentiated crowd.
Step 2: Build journeys that form habits
Repeat customers spend 67% more than new ones. Not because they’re richer or more generous, but because they’ve decided, somewhere along the way, that you’re worth it. And every time you make it easy, relevant, and genuinely worth their while to come back, that decision becomes simpler. More natural. It becomes a habit.
The brands pulling ahead, the ones who want to break free, aren’t running smarter campaigns. They’re building smarter habits.
Journeys built around how people actually live. Their daypart, their mission, their order history, their channel preference. Not what’s on the promo calendar, but what this particular person needs from you right now.
And it means stopping the thing that quietly erodes superfan loyalty faster than anything else: giving your best customers exactly the same deal you give everyone else. Rewarding frequency and familiarity the same way you reward a first visit is the marketing equivalent of Freddie walking out at Wembley and playing exclusively to the back of the room.
Your front row deserves better than that.
Step 3: Grow repeat revenue
Loyalty sales grew 34% in 2024. Non-loyalty? Flat at minus 0.9%.
That gap is what the compounding looks like when you do steps one and two properly, and measure it honestly.
Opens and clicks won’t deliver that number one slot. Start generating those repeat visits and looking at revenue per customer. Did the offer you sent actually change their behaviour? Did you actually pay for a visit that was coming anyway? There’s a meaningful difference between a campaign that looked great in the Tuesday morning recap and one that genuinely moved your P&L. Your superfans will show you which is which, if you’re looking at the right numbers.
The conversation at City x City last week kept landing in the same place. Not “do we have the data?” Everyone in that room had the data. The question was always “how do we actually use it to make better calls?”
Freddie Mercury didn’t have a CDP or a Snowflake instance. He had instinct, presence, and an extraordinary ability to make every single person in the room feel like the show was for them.
The Superfan System is our attempt to give brands the same thing. Not magic, exactly. But close enough.
If you’d like to know who your superfans are, who your almost-superfans are, and what one extra visit a month from each of them would actually be worth, that’s exactly where our team can help.
Get in touch. We’ll put on our fake moustaches and squeeze into the tight trousers and find your front row, together.
