It has been said before and it will be said again—Taylor Swift is the music industry. Most people would probably characterize Taylor Swift as the biggest celebrity in the world right now. It is hard to go a day without seeing a story about her. Between her re-recordings and her relationship with Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce, it’s near impossible to get away from her. She was even named Time Magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year.
Taylor Swift grew up on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania (hence her 2019 song “Christmas Tree Farm”). She started writing and performing songs for her family at a young age. Her debut album was released when she was just 16 years old, debuting at number 19 on the Billboard 200 and selling 40,000 copies in its first week. Since then, she has released 10 albums and re-recorded 4 of her previous albums. Swift has sold 51 million album units in the US and 114 million worldwide. She has achieved 11 #1 Billboard hits and currently has 108 million monthly listeners on Spotify, making her the 2023 Spotify #1 artist worldwide with 26.1 billion streams since January 1st. For comparison, last year Bad Bunny won with 18.5 billion streams. Billboard predicts that she will earn close to $200 million in royalties for the year. Swift has broken 111 world records, 10 of which were in 2023 alone (Morrow, 2023). These include the most #1 albums by a woman in history, being the first artist to win Billboard Music’s Artist of the Year in three different decades, and achieving AMC’s highest presale ticket sales in a single day. Whether you are a fan or not, it’s hard to ignore her undeniable popularity.
In 2021, Swift began re-recording her albums that she had recorded under her first label, Big Machine Records. In 2019, Taylor’s masters, or rights to ownership of her music, were sold to Ithaca Holdings, owned by Scooter Braun, despite Taylor’s objections to the sale (Espada, 2023). Swift was Haunted by the idea of not owning her own music, so she has begun to record her first six albums under her name, an idea suggested by Kelly Clarkson. All of which have done tremendously in sales. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) had 722.7M streams in the first year. Red (Taylor’s Version) sold 2M album units in the first year. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) had all 22 tracks on the billboard hot 100. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) had 160M streams in the first week. These re-recorded albums were such a success that record labels recently began to include a clause in their contracts that artists can’t re-record their music for at least 30 years.
Taylor’s Eras tour has also been one for the books. It is projected to have an economic impact of $5B with $93M in consumer spending each night. Not to mention her $13M in ticket sales each night, totaling $2.2B in US ticket sales. Once again, TAYLOR SWIFT IS THE MUSIC INDUSTRY.
Her Eras Tour film has grossed $246M worldwide, half which came from the opening weekend. The film made $26M in first day presales. Long Story Short, she is popular.
Swift’s Era’s Tour film was released through a deal that the Swift family made directly with AMC. Part of this deal is that the Swift family will receive 57% of the film’s revenue (AMC Stock). The deal was a win-win scenario for both Swift, and the theater chain that had been struggling in a post-pandemic world. Following the release of the film, Beyoncé also released her Renaissance World Tour film through AMC.
A lot of people attribute Taylor Swift’s popularity to her ability to rebrand herself and Begin Again with every new album she releases. Everyone knows that she has slowly transitioned from the country to pop, genre-wise. Contrary to popular belief, Taylor’s success comes from the fact that she has stuck to her brand through all the changes in her music. Consistency in branding is a fundamental part of marketing. At face value Taylor Swift is America’s sweetheart, AKA “Miss Americana”. She is thought of as wholesome, and a role model to women everywhere. She was this person when she was 16 years old and released her debut album, and although she has matured, she is still this person—this is Nothing New. She still holds the same place in the public light. When you think of Taylor Swift as a brand, there are three words that sum up her persona–relationships, humility, and storytelling.
Relationships
When “relationship” is said in the same breath as Taylor Swift, it is natural to think of her tumultuous love life. Rightfully so, as this is an important aspect of her brand. This is such a large part of her brand, because her fans can live vicariously through her. Swift has always tried to keep her personal life relatively private. Although her community of fans has always enjoyed speculating about who her new beau is. Swifties can do this by using her music that is heavily influenced by her real life as a supplement to pop culture news. It is in this way that Swifties have jumped to the conclusion that “All Too Well” is about Swift’s relationship with Jake Gyllenhall, and “Dear John” was about John Mayer.
Most recently, Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end who is currently one of the biggest names in football. Kelce is truly the male version of America’s sweetheart. He is a two-time Superbowl champion–he is one of the best tight ends in the NFL. They really are Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince. Taylor fans everywhere are fully invested in her relationship. Initially, the timing of the relationship felt like a coincidence (with her Eras Tour film about to hit theaters and it being right at the start of football season), but Swift and Kelce were quickly able to stop the doubts. At Taylor’s first concert on the South American leg of her tour, she even worked Kelce into her song, “Karma”—singing “karma is the guy on the Chiefs coming straight home to me”. Of course, Taylor’s fans went insane over this surprise lyric change.
Granted, Taylor’s love life is a large part of her persona, but there is a bigger picture when it comes to Taylor Swift and relationships. And that is her relationship with her fans. Between friendship bracelets and easter eggs she has created a bond with each individual fan. This is something that stars half her size struggle to do. She has found a way to make each, and every fan feel valued. And every fan is valued. For example, in Rio De Janiero, on her Eras tour she went out of her way to ensure that all her fans had water when they needed it. She has made very generous donations to each city that she has visited on her Eras tour. Her acts of kindness aren’t just a Hoax.
Not only that but Taylor continues to reward her fans for their listening. After being announced as Spotify’s #1 artist of the year, she released a “from the vault song” from Midnights and fans that purchased merchandise received a bump in line when trying to purchase Eras tour tickets. Taylor’s fans are clearly very important to her. Before the Eras Tour she had only cancelled one show because she knows how much of an effort her fans put into buying tickets, planning, finding the perfect outfit, and getting to her show. When the presale for the Eras tour opened, Ticketmaster combusted because the site traffic exceeded capacity. Many Taylor’s fans couldn’t get tickets. Swift’s initial response was to keep adding shows. However, ticket prices were still too high due to the demand. Taylor finally announced that she would be releasing her concert as a film in theaters. She encouraged her fans to treat this like a concert–trade friendship bracelets, sing, and dance–to give everyone a chance to get the concert experience.
She has also created a community of Swifties. This is a very large part of her brand. She does direct marketing like every other artist, but she also has User Generated Content. It is nearly impossible to scroll on any social media app without seeing something about Taylor Swift—whether it is someone trying to piece together her Easter eggs to predict the release of Reputation (Taylor’s Version), or a new record she has broken. Swift has created a community that does a lot of her advertising for her simply by being excited about new music. The most important part of the relationships that Swift maintains with her fans is that she isn’t pretending, she really cares about them—in fact after opening weekend, the Era’s tour film wasn’t playing in theaters during the week, to not distract her younger fans from their schoolwork. This is a large part of creating the Miss Americana persona—she is real, and really a good person.
When Taylor Swift announced the Eras tour, her fans were abuzz. Fans were able to register for her presale for about a week. When the presale opened, Ticketmaster’s web traffic exceeded all expectations. Fans waited all day in the queue for the chance to maybe get a ticket. A lot of her fans had foreseen the insanity of the Eras Tour presale–they had taken the day off from work or stayed home from school. Swifties devoted a lot of time to this–it really was The Great War. During the presales alone, 2.4 million tickets were sold, Ticketmaster was forced to cancel the general sale–as there weren’t enough tickets left. This is when Taylor made a statement saying that she was extremely upset watching her fans jump through hoops, and still not get a chance to buy tickets. She also went on to say that she hoped to find a way to give fans another opportunity to purchase tickets. Months later Swifties received emails from Ticketmaster.
“You were selected for this opportunity because you have been identified as a fan who received a boost during the Verified Fan presale but did not purchase tickets. We apologize for the difficulties you may have experienced and have been asked by Taylor’s team to create this additional opportunity for you to purchase tickets.”
The additional opportunity was to select a price tier and be entered into basically a raffle to be able to purchase two tickets. Taylor Swift rewarded her true fans, by giving them another opportunity to buy tickets. This is just another instance of Swift demonstrating how much her fans mean to her.
Humility
Another large part of her brand is that she is real and humble. She is one of the biggest stars of the world and still manages to be down-to-earth and not full of herself. In Miss Americana (Wilson, 2020), Taylor is very unguarded. In fact, in her documentary, she spends a very large portion of the film talking about social and political issues, rather than about herself. At least the first 10 minutes of the film is her just playing with her cats, like a normal person. There are hundreds of videos of her on the Eras tour “being real” –not putting on her dress correctly, or her hair acting up. Amid the Ticketmaster fiasco, Taylor came out and apologized to her fans for the difficulty purchasing tickets. Taylor even opens her tour by doing something unique, but so simple she introduces herself. She is the biggest superstar in the world, and she starts off her show by saying, “Hi, I’m Taylor”. She handles the mistakes with humor, just like most people would do. If you look back on Taylor’s career it is easy to see that even though she has become more mature and a little more polished in how she speaks and acts, she isn’t ever full of herself.
Storytelling
It is hard to talk about Taylor Swift and not bring up her storytelling ability. That is what she is known for; it is what has and what will continue to set her music apart from other pop stars. There is even an exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design about her called Taylor Swift: Storyteller. A lot of her strong points in storytelling come from use of intertextuality in her music, this can be seen as early in her career as “Love Story”. In this song she utilizes the Timeless story of Romeo and Juliet to fantasize about her own love story. Folklore and Evermore are important to talk about when focusing on Taylor’s storytelling. Swift knows the tragic end to the Love Story, All Too Well. Majority of Taylor’s songs are about her own experiences—which might be why it is so easy to be so descriptive in her writing. However, Folklore and Evermore were written during covid. They came from a time when she was in a happy relationship. Lover had just come out and she couldn’t write another album about being happy, it goes against her brand. These albums came from worlds that she dreamt up. They are fiction; some songs even go into fantasy—talking about witches. Taylor Swift can control her storytelling entirely by directing her music videos, or her short film. The All Too Well Short Film was screened at the Tribeca film festival and the Toronto International film festival. A music video for which Taylor won the Grammy for Best Music Video this year, becoming the first artist to win it with a sole directing credit for their own music video. After the success of the All Too Well short film (Swift, 2021), it was announced that Taylor Swift will be making her feature film director debut with Searchlight Pictures with an original script that she has written.
Taylor Swift has a lot going for her–her voice, her looks, her army of fans, not to mention that she is talented. However, as with almost everything that exists in their current world, she does have a marketing plan and a publicist, Tree Paine. There is a lot more that goes into Taylor Swift and her marketing efforts than what initially comes to mind. From a business perspective, there is one major takeaway from Taylor Swift’s career. Success comes from knowing your brand and sticking to it.
Swift is clearly more than just a popstar; she is a Mastermind who is single handedly revolutionizing what it means to be a superstar in today’s world.
References
AMC Stock: Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concert movies are triggering a … (n.d.). https://www.thestreet.com/memestocks/amc/amc-stock-taylor-swift-and-beyonc%C3%A9-concert-movies-are-triggering-a-structural-change-
Espada, M. (2023, August 10). Taylor Swift is halfway through her rerecording project. Time. https://time.com/6292599/taylor-swift-speak-now-rerecord-project/
Morrow, B. (2023, August 16). All the records Taylor Swift has broken in 2023. theweek. https://theweek.com/culture/entertainment/1025810/taylor-swift-records-2023
NBCUniversal News Group. (2022, December 12). Karma for Taylor Swift fans as Ticketmaster offers second chance for “eras tour” tickets. NBCNews.com. https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/taylor-swift-fans-ticketmaster-second-chance-eras-tour-rcna61306