The power of the ‘super-fan’: how One Direction took over the world (& lessons in talent management)

Typically I write about things like Ancient Rome or twentieth century American literature. So why this week have I decided to write about a now dispersed teen boy band?

In short, while Rome took over the known world, for a brief minute, One Direction took over the world.

With sold-out concerts from Tokyo to London to Mexico City, in less than two years, five teenagers, Niall, Liam, Harry, Louis and Zayn, went from not knowing each other to being the largest-selling artist on the planet.

Now, I’m no ‘Directioner’, but anyone in marketing, PR or talent management who doesn’t think the band worthy of study is making a serious folly.

This was a group that could sell out six dates at London’s 02 Arena in minutes, became the first band in US billboard history to have their first four albums debut at #1, and had the highest-grossing tour of a vocal group ever in 2014.

So: how did this all happen?

Was it the care and attention that went into the group’s assembly? No, the five didn’t know each other. In 2010, after getting chucked off of X Factor as solo artists, Simon Cowell, the show’s producer, ‘then made a decision, and I did it in about 10 minutes, why don’t we put these five boys into a group?’

Was it the depth of meaning behind the name they then came up with? Unlikely. According to fan favourite Harry Styles, ‘I think it was me [who came up with it]’. What does it mean? ‘I don’t know… We threw around names for a little bit, everyone was like “yeah, we like that”, and then it kind of stuck.’

The group was thrown together. So what led to such major commercial success?

Cowell takes little credit. But he can tell you the reason. After the group’s third-place finish on X Factor, ‘200 or 300 “super-fans” made it their job to promote this band around the world… [and I] saw something I’ve never seen before in the music business, which is fans, not a record label, marketing and promoting a band worldwide.’ Cowell goes on: ‘From the second it finished, the fans made it their mission that One Direction were going to become the biggest band in the world.’

In the group’s documentary This Is Us, produced and directed by Morgan Spurlock, fans say things like, ‘so I started tweeting and I literally made it my life’, ‘I sent like 16,000 tweets’ and ‘I was tweeting from Japan’.

Backed by this fanfare, the band’s first single What Makes You Beautiful went straight to #1 in the US, their first album went to #1 in 43 countries, and in a matter of weeks they were performing to sold out audiences in Madison Square Gardens and the world’s most notable stadiums.

And this a group that comprised members who months earlier had been a cashier at a bakery, a shop floor attendant at Toys R Us, and one of whom (Zayn) was passportless and had ‘never seen a plane in real life’.

Harry explained, ‘The reason why the fans are so dedicated is because I think they feel like they can relate to us. We’re the kind of boys you go to school with… and that’s because we are.’

This wasn’t necessarily a new phenomena in the world of boy bands. In the early 2000s, fans of Busted and McFly would have said the same. But One Direction’s instant global celebrity — something that dwarfed anything even The Beatles experienced — certainly was. As much as it’s talked about, the power of social media is still today underestimated.

Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans is an often quoted concept for a small group whose admiration can pave your way. But One Direction’s story puts a whole new spin on the influence of fans. Enthusiastic enough, a group a third that size can today be the digital fire-starters that spread your work around the globe.

There are people who churl aplenty at popular music and the producers behind it — ‘the machine’. But you can’t deny the vision of Simon Cowell. Seeing their potential, he put the group together during the competition, then signed them to his label after their third placed finish when he’d usually only take the winner.

The band might have split up (they’re on ‘extended hiatus’), but they’ve done a remarkably good job of holding it together personally. Harry has gone on to star in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, and with the size of their individual followings, the others won’t be wanting of similar opportunities. Reports of major scandal are noticeably absent from their story.

In a 2014 interview with Dan Rather, Cowell said, ‘I still to this day owe and credit everything to this group of 200–300 fans who just did the most phenomenal job I’ve ever seen.’

Likewise, a year into their fame, driving in a minivan between shows, Styles joked, ‘we owe all of our careers to electricity’. That they do, and with it the super-fan is charged and ready. How many more global superstars should we expect to see produced from the source?