ICYMI-- Taylor Swift released her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) on Friday, April 19th. Swift embraces re-invention and rebranding as she evolves and ages over time. The marketing tactics reflect this growth and often become more experimental with each album release. The album was announced at the Grammys in February, and there was minimal advertising done for the album before release week, which breaks with the traditional promotional cycle of releasing a lead single to get listeners excited for new music. Even without an overt traditional marketing push, The Tortured Poets Department still broke streaming records on both Spotify and Apple Music. (Variety, 2024)

Source: IG @Taylorswift

Swift positions herself as a "tortured poet" in this album, dealing with the pressures and struggles of her creative and celebrity life. Swift used multiple strategies to promote the release, one of which involved the release of limited-time merchandise on her website along with multiple limited edition vinyls, CDs, and cassette tapes, with each set containing a different bonus track and different artwork. Consequently, this creates a sense of urgency to buy the merchandise and variants in fear of the items selling out, while also positioning the variants as collector’s items. There are often timers on her website counting down to when the sale of items will end, or disclaimers that say “while supplies last”. Additionally, her team often creates hype for merch drops/other surprises by having countdowns leading up to a drop, often hidden as an Easter Egg for the fandom to find. 

Swift leans heavily on the physical aspect of owning music even as streaming has become more popular and the go-to for listening. Since the Fearless release in 2009, she has been releasing special edition CDs and vinyls exclusively in Target stores, creating a longstanding partnership that has been mutually beneficial for the singer and retail chain. Swift also utilizes streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music to promote her albums by providing exclusive content to each respective platform. On Apple Music, there were playlists curated in anticipation of the album with a theme from the new album using her previous work. There was also a daily puzzle encrypted in the Apple Music lyrics, where a song from one of the 5 playlists would have certain letters capitalized that would then spell out a word to form a clue about the album. This happened leading up to the album and was a callback for her longtime fans when she used to include secret messages the same way in the album liner notes. (The message read: “We hereby conduct this post-mortem,” a lyric on one of the Anthology tracks released at 2am.) For Spotify listeners, the billboards featured in major cities leading up to the release only included lyrics from the second half of the album released at 2am. This left many fans confused during their first listen, but eagle-eyed Swifties knew to look forward to a surprise at 2am based on Easter Eggs from Swift (more on this later!)

Source: Spotify

Additionally, Spotify built a pop-up installation at The Grove in Los Angeles, CA which opened up on Tuesday, April 16th. This pop-up was an open-air installation of a poetry library that allowed fans to explore Swift’s new era. Each day, the installation was updated to include more surprises which kept fans coming back (Elle, 2024). Fans were eager to visit the library and find Easter Eggs Swift had left for them. Those who were unable to attend were still able to visit it via social media posts. Integrating social media marketing with an in-person experience creates a fear of missing out (F.O.M.O.), bringing more awareness to Spotify and their support of the pop-up shop as well as generating engagement on their posts.

The marketing leading up to the album was thoughtful but subtle. Swift would release little bits and pieces on her social media about the album to keep fans excited. It began with just a post of the album cover with the track list, as well as the variants of vinyl editions. The official fan account run by her team @taylornation also shared updates from “the chairman” leading up to the release. The content Swift posted leading up to TTPD was limited but carefully chosen. Swift assigns a color to each era, and every post made on her account, as well as on @taylornation, used a sepia filter leading up to the album release even if the post was not pertaining to TTPD. This gave her profile a rebrand, and gave fans a hint to the more somber tone of the Era. 

Social media is the place where Swifties can gather from all over the world and share their devotion and love of Taylor Swift with others. Fans are eager to participate in the Easter Egg clues Swift leaves through her clothing, speeches, photographs, and social media posts. Swift has admitted she leaves clues to new releases up to two years in advance, giving fans plenty of time to create theories. For TTPD, it was a nod at the number two. She was holding up a peace sign at many Eras Tour concert nights, the album announcement, and throughout social media that left fans speculating. The two ended up being the hint to a double release of the album, as at 2 am on April 19th, she released another 15 songs: The Anthology on top of 16 songs for a total of 31 songs at 2 hours and 2 minutes. Swift’s fans know what to look for, and Swift often provides – it is a mutual game they play and everyone enjoys it. 

In the weeks leading up to the release of the album, her official fan page @taylornation was active on X, formerly known as Twitter, prompting the album and engaging with fans posting about their excitement. The account responded with content related to the TTPD era, whether it was puns on the track titles or the use of emojis. The X account was active the entire day on the 18th posting tweets and retweeting fans. Starting at 12:00 AM E.S.T. at the time of release, they were actively tweeting content related to the songs that would align with the millions of listeners streaming for a massive streaming party. 

Most, if not all, of her marketing was towards her current fans, and she knows how to get their attention. And her fans take care of the rest organically streaming, listening, buying, and reposting content about all of the lyrics and hidden messages. The fans constantly sharing content related to Swift and their theories is then often picked up by media outlets to be shared with more mainstream audiences. Swift’s in a league of her own for the record, competing with herself for top spots on the Billboard Hot 100 and most streamed albums in a day. Swift’s legacy was not always like this; it was years in the making of hard work and determination. If you want to keep up with all things marketing, be sure to follow us on social and check into our blog from time to time!