Taylor Swift: The Marketing Genius

Taylor Swift: American icon, lyrical genius, and marketing master. Swift has won eleven Grammy Awards and is the only artist in recording history to occupy every spot in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Swift has been in the music industry for over 18 years and is still able to cause a flurry of excitement with every new announcement. Whether that be a new album, a new music video or a new tour, she is constantly keeping the world on their toes.

But how does she do it? How does she manage to thrill everyone after all these years? 

The answer is her marketing. Swift has been known for her mastermind advertising and she uses many different marketing strategies, such as reinventing herself to stay relevant, using easter eggs, and putting content on social media.

In the past ten years, it has gotten harder for companies and artists to remain relevant. For artists to succeed, it is crucial for them to be able to surprise their audience. 

Taylor Swift has reinvented herself many times and is still widely talked about today. She first started as a country singer but in 2015, when she released 1989,  transitioned into pop music. 1989 is her best selling album, with over 14,332,116 total copies sold.

But after the release of 1989, major drama between Kanye West and Swift erupted. Kanye West and Taylor Swift have had ongoing drama since 2009 when West interrupted Swift’s speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. After the release of 1989, Kanye West released a song called “Famous” in 2016. In that song, he wrote, “I made that bitch famous” referring to Taylor Swift. Swift claimed that she did not give consent to West to use that line in his song. Kanye West then proceeded to release a fake phone call recording of their conversation. The internet believed that Taylor Swift was a lying backstabber and her haters took over Twitter with the hashtag, #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty. After receiving huge backlash, Swift deleted her social media and created a new album called Reputation. After the album was released, fans were shocked by her ultimate comeback from the hate and how in many of her songs, she used multiple references to the Kanye West feud. This ultimately led Reputation to be one of Swift’s most iconic albums to this day, and because of this album, she is known to be the queen of karma and revenge.

With each album that Taylor Swift releases, she creates more anticipation from her fans. With the recent release of her new album, Midnights and the announcement of “The Eras” tour, she has her fans scrambling with excitement to listen to her new songs and get tickets for her concerts. Swift stays relevant by surprising her fans and the world with her announcements of new music, merch, concerts, and more. 

Another big part of how she markets herself is the use of “easter eggs.” As Fortune states, “Swift uses ‘easter eggs’—hidden, self-referential messages that fans are excited to find, analyze, and share.” 

Swift started using easter eggs in 2006 when she first released her debut album. She put secret messages in her lyrics booklet, which also contained certain capitalized letters to spell out a message. In 2017, Swift started using visual easter eggs; in her most recent release, Midnights, she featured plenty of easter eggs in her music videos: “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled.” With just some letters on a hair clip or the color of an elevator button, Swift is always able to make her fans play detective. Through this imagery in her “Bejeweled” music video, the Swiftie fandom was able to predict that Taylor Swift was releasing Speak Now Taylor’s Version as her next album.

“I’ve trained them to be that way,” Swift said to Entertainment Weekly in 2019. “I love that they like the cryptic hint-dropping. Because as long as they like it, I’ll keep doing it. It’s fun. It feels mischievous and playful.” 

Another way she markets and advertises her music is through the use of social media. Swift promotes her name through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. In August of 2021, she joined the TikTok community. 

Before the release of her album Midnights, she did a series on Tiktok called “Midnights Mayhem with Me.” One by one, Taylor Swift released the track titles of her new album which induced great enthusiasm in her fans. But not only did she release these videos on TikTok, she also reposted them on her Instagram stories so they could be more accessible to everyone. She was able to create both suspense and anticipation for the album while also continuously promoting it. 

Taylor Swift is called a marketing genius for a reason. Despite her rise to fame being 18 years ago, she’s still been able to keep her title for so long. Her usage of marketing has been a huge advantage to her and through this, she’s made herself a world wide icon to this day.

by LILLIAN YANG