Essay on Taylor Swift and Her Management Team

Sam Smith and Liam Gallagher maintain and develop a traditional marketing and publicity campaign (Music Week). By using an innovative marketing campaign on her most recent album drop “Reputation” in conjunction with the accouncement of her “Reputation World Tour” through revolutionary Partnerships, Social Media changes, and the Development of “Taylor Tix”. As Chris Ming states Taylor Swift's “Reputation” marketing campaign was a “second-to-none marketing machine” (Chris Ming. The Reputation album was a drastic change in her “core sound” (PR Daily).

The “reputation” album within the first 24 hours of release “Look what you made me do” was viewed on YouTube 43.2 million times. Other Achievements upon the drop of the “Look what you made me do”, Within 30 minutes Taylor was No.1 on the iTunes Charts and set a first-day Spotify streaming record with 8 million streams. (Adele Cehrs)

The record-breaking “Reputation” Album resulted in 400,000 pre-orders. 1.22 Million Copies were sold within the first week, becoming the best-selling album in 2017 (Chris Ming). As Vulture reported

“… Less than a week after its release, Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” has broken all sorts of streaming records, and it only really needed a day to do it. According to Nielsen, in just 24 hours, the official video racked up 43.2 million views after its debut during the VMAs, making it the biggest debut of any video in YouTube history” (Beki Winchel)

Timeline:

To achieve a successful marketing campaign a combination of Social Media activities and TV Appearances were executed starting on 18th August 2017 Taylor wiped her social media accounts including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr account clean effectively putting in motion a whirlwind of speculation rumors about a potential release to her 250 million followers. Inconveniently this date is the 3 years anniversary of “Shake it off” and the “1989” Album release (Variety). Cryptic videos of a “Snake moving its tail” (Variety) and “a snake striking” (Variety) on Instagram. On August 23rd Taylor Swift announced that on the 10th of November, the “Reputation” album would be released surprising fans and industry observers expecting a Friday release similar to previous albums.

On August 24th “Look What You Made Me Do” was released at 11:30 pm Eastern Time on Spotify, Apple Music, and iTunes. The song provided a dark and threatening tone, finger pointing towards Kanye West causing a social media conspiracy regardless of the negative feedback for Kanye Wests Fan and positive feedback from Taylor Swifts fans backing her. Regardless “Look What You Made Me Do” became No.1 on iTunes and Streaming Services (Variety). A press release was created to announce the song and details regarding pre-ordering the “Reputation” Album and exclusive partnerships. A teaser to the “Look What You Made Me Do” Music Video was Launched on the American morning show “Good Morning America” and Instagram on the 25th of August. (Variety)

Marketing Products/ Partners:

Taylor Swift has been forging relationships and deals with partners within various industries including Diet Coke, Apple, and Keds. The Launch of the reputation album especially when “look what you made me do” dropped her appeal to lucrative partner deals. To market and distribute to major TV include the use of Prime Time shows to promote the album. Further use of ESPN college football network hitting her young audience (Forbes) was part of a multi-year deal signed with AT&T (Forbes).

Taylor and her team used more traditional means of Marketing through the use of an exclusive deal within Target in the United States providing an exclusive album and Magazine. This included the use of her app launched in late 2017 “The Swift Life” to connect to her fan base on a more personal level. (Forbes). UPS partnered with Taylor Swift allowing her fans walking down the street to take a selfie and post and gain a “boost” on Taylor Tix and UPS becoming the “official Taylor delivery partner” (Martin Kihn). UPS full took advantage of this situation by posting a video packing a box that seemed to be going to a “swiftie”.

Variety (UPS)

Excited to be the Official Delivery Partner of Taylor Swift’s new album! Look for #TaylorSwiftDelivery trucks: http://bit.ly/2wMIB5P

Taylor Swift has made an “effort to ‘beat the bots” for her reputation album launch built and feed her current fan base but communicating through social media prompting her “Swifties” (Angela Allan). Taylor Swift and her Management team introduced a “beat the bots” system or “Taylor Swift TIX powered by Ticketmaster Verified Fan” program (Forbes) a product of the Analytics of her fan to better understand what they want and to further encourage her fan base to conduct a range of tasks to prove loyalty with their money by developing an “Us vs Them” Positioning eg. US= Taylor Swift and her Fans vs Scalpers and Bots (Christopher Ming). This was achieved by “Swifties” twitting about buying the Reputation Album to spending USD$60 for a snake ring or other merch allowing feel close to Taylor Swift and increase their chance of gain concert tickets their status is being updated as Christopher Ming stated

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“By doing different activities, I “boost” my account and get priority access to tickets to her show” (Christopher Ming). Taylor Swift and her team know that tickets to her concerts are sold out in seconds (Christopher Ming) states “Given that concert tickets sell out in a matter of seconds in some cases, earning rewards is a fan’s only way of guaranteeing that they’ll be able to go to a live show” (Christopher Ming). Ironically the biggest boost a Swiftie can achieve is buying an album in a world where 60% of music is consumed music through streaming is 60% of consumption within the United States and Music Videos on YouTube both contain free options. As Taylor Swift wrote in the WSJ “In the YouTube generation, we live in, I walked out onstage every night of my stadium tour last year knowing almost every fan had already seen the show online. To continue to show them something they had never seen before, I brought out dozens of special guest performers to sing their hits with me. My generation was raised being able to flip channels if we got bored, and we read the last page of the book when we got impatient. We want to be caught off guard, delighted, left in awe,” (Christopher Ming)

Despite the success of the “Taylor Swift TIX” (Forbes), Bob Lefsetz an industry commentator wrote “It’s almost a Ponzi scheme, but in this case, you buy the stuff you don’t really want for a chance to get what you do want, tickets, but you can’t get.” (Forbes). Getting points doesn’t secure your chance at getting tickets but means you are higher on the list when they go on pre-sale (PR Daily) meaning her fan felt like they were being exploited. Many Swifties and members of the public praised her for her entrepreneurship but others believed she was ripping off her fans. As Beki Winchel states “Swift is selling her tickets in an auction. Even though the tickets themselves will be sold at fixed prices, they’ll go to the people who are willing to “pay” the most through buying merchandise, generating social media buzz, and watching Swift’s music videos over and over again. Potential buyers are competing with one another, just like in a traditional auction.” (PR Daily)

Taylor Swift even had a hard time convicting her fans to use Taylor TIX and to ignore the Economic Sense of the program, as Ben Rayner wrote, “even the Swift-best of ‘Swifties’ are having a hard time putting a positive spin on the singer’s pre-tour marketing campaign for her forthcoming Reputation stage show.” (PR Daily)

Taylor Swift and her Marketing Team knew this would cause a discussion among fans and cause outrage from members of her own fan base and the general public. Fans were backing Taylor Swift and fighting back against the criticism of the general public and her criticizing fans believed they were showing their commitment to Taylor. Below is an example of the Reward, loyalty, and monetization of the Loyalty Program.

Social Media/ Target Market:

Taylor Swift has mastered the ability to pioneer and engineer social media. She achieved success through social media by appealing to her core fan base of teenagers during her “reputation” album release and marketing campaign. Taylor Swift left clues within her videos, Social Media Accounts, and Lyrics including in the “When Look What You Made me do” video. Taylor Swift uses conspiracies and clues to engage with her fans and encourage them.

Taylor Swift created a Media Blackout including her social media accounts until her release. She didn’t appear in any magazine articles or conventual media marketing such as Late-night TV or Radio Shows. Taylor Swift's most effective Strategy was a complete social media wipe on her Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts. Overnight we saw her 102 million Instagram followers whilst wiping her official website (Martin Kihn). This was an effective move only Taylor Swift could achieve as Angela Allan states “make a big, bold, out-of-the-box marketing move to get your audience’s attention, AND make sure it fits in with the rest of your campaign” (Angela Allan)

This marketing campaign allowed Taylor Swift to that control and develop her own social media. By deleting her social media content she was able to lay the groundwork for the reputation album and reputation World Tour whilst allowing for future endeavors and reinventing herself. (Liz Doerr). This allowed her to share promotional material on her Social Media Accounts such as Snapshots from her performances (Sarah Metoxen). His fan base has grown up with her country music days, they demand a more mature and rebellious Taylor and marketing campaign. (Liz Doerr).

Taylor Swift's marketing partially on Taylor Swift “power is creating drama that gives fans access to her celebrity feuds with A-listers like Kanye West and Katy Perry, the revolving door of relationships and breakups, and her ever-changing group of friends in her inner girl squad” (Forbes). She was portrayed as a villain or big bad guy providing a 'superhero act to become a conniving, cowardly villain' (Forbes).

Taylor Swift has a Loyal Fan who will enjoy the content Taylor Swift produce including social media content and music content, no matter the opinion of Industry Observers due to this her “swifties” are active within social media. Similarly, Taylor responds and actively gets in her involved in her social media accounts by Liking and Sharing her followers' posts even saving fans' pictures on her phone. Taylor Swift and her Team influenced and built her follower base through these communications. (Nex Gen Dynamics). Below is an example of an interaction

Secret Sessions were created by the Taylor Swifts Team inviting a select group of Super Fans to private listening sessions. During these sessions, her fans were able to talk to Taylor themselves and or a video. These secret sessions were later used in advertisements on YouTube and “Good Morning America” (Martin Kihn).

Taylor Swift and Her Team Taylor Nation used Branded Hashtags to engage audience members and to create hype for an up-and-coming event or promotion. #reptour(city name) was used during her stadium tour to provide engage with other fans within that city or for future cities. (Nex Gen Dynamics).