Why is Taylor Swift So Popular? She’s a Marketing Mastermind
Taylor Swift is a pop culture phenomenon unlike the world has ever seen. But how did she become this way, why are her fans so devoted, and what keeps us interested in the prolific pop star?
Firstly, she writes an incredible song. But beyond her innate talent and charisma lies a more scientific truth: she’s a marketing whiz (or at least her team is).
This is not to say that her entire career is built solely on marketing, but her level of success in the industry today could not have been attained without her marketing brilliance and business acumen.
Why is Taylor Swift so popular? It all comes down to two major factors: human psychology, and marketing.
As the star herself has said, “What if I told you none of it was accidental?”
Please Note: In this article I use “Taylor Swift” to refer to both the singer and her vast team of experts. Taylor does not do this massive job alone, and is surrounded by brilliance.
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The Key Marketing Tactics Taylor Swift Uses
Part of the brilliance of Taylor Swift’s marketing is that it’s not in-your-face. Many of her tactics are covert and subtle, and that’s precisely why they’re so effective.
Taylor Swift, Tree Paine, and their extensive team are master marketers, and nothing they say or do is accidental.
Here are some of the primary marketing tactics they use.
Consistent & Cohesive Brand Narrative
It’s not just about the product. It’s about creating an entire identity and brand story. Taylor is the brand, and her persona changes through eras but also remains consistent for continuity.
Taylor’s “Eras” are another great example of this: she brands them with colors, fonts, emotions and themes that both make them distinct, and make them a part of the larger Taylor Swift narrative.
Rewarding Loyalty
Taylor is known for rewarding her fans with meet and greets, physical gifts, and surprises. She was one of the first artists ever to roll out “loyalty” presale codes through Ticketmaster, where only the most passionate and dedicated fans were able to purchase concert tickets.
Though she no longer does meet and greets, and today the Ticketmaster presale codes are mostly luck-of-the-draw, fans are still rewarded in more covert ways.
If you’re really eagle-eyed, you can spot patterns and hints in her marketing that point toward her next project. It makes us feel as though if we really pay attention, we’ll be rewarded with a secret.
Games
You know those rewards schemes that keep you coming back to your grocery store? The same thing is at play in Taylor Swift’s marketing, except it’s much more subtle.
She creates interactive elements for us to participate in, both overtly (see the current TikTok bracelet challenges), and covertly (see her ever-changing Eras Tour wardrobe, which Swifties try to decode and pattern-match).
Swifties have coined our reception to this tactic as “clowning,” where we look for patterns and clues within Taylor’s universe to try to predict her next move.
Storytelling
Taylor is a master storyteller, but her brand itself also tells a story: she’s the country-girl-gone-pop, the small-town-teen-gone-big-city-woman, the “canceled” pop star who rose up from the dead.
She’s mastered storytelling both large and small, and it keeps us wanting to see what’s next in the plotline.
Knowing Your Audience
Taylor & team are known to always be checking the pulse of her audience. If she feels overexposed, she’ll retreat for a while. If her fans want more of something, she’ll give it to them.
The All Too Well [10-Minute Version] is a great example of this. Fans kept asking for it, and she finally gave it to us.
Her team is always listening and learning (as she recently confirmed with her subtle nose-touch on stage), and can therefore cater their marketing to what Swifties are craving, and steer away from what they don’t.
Omnichannel Strategy
Taylor is not only all over every form of social media, but she’s all over every form of media. She releases songs, albums, music videos, short films, stars in feature films (let’s not talk about Cats, though…), and proliferates every news cycle.
She’s everywhere, and therefore she can reach the largest audience possible. She uses each medium strategically to send different messages, encouraging us to check every source if we want it all.
Exclusivity and Closeness
What began with leaving secret messages in her lyric booklets spawned a massive community hunt for clues. She uses her parasocial relationship with her fans to keep us hooked, and to make us feel like we know her, but can’t quite know all of her.
She is the exclusive product that we all want to “buy” (to know more personally). Though we know we’ll never get that, we are made to feel as though we are let in on just enough of her inner life to keep us interested.
Creating Buzz & Anticipation
Taylor has reached the point where a simple nail polish color can create buzz and anticipation for what’s next.
In her earlier years, her album rollouts were heavily – and cleverly – marketed (see her reputation blank-slate campaign).
But now that she’s at the top of the industry, she can surprise drop albums and still break all records.
These days, Swifties create much of the buzz and anticipation themselves, which goes to show how masterfully Taylor & team have played the game.
Reinvention & Rebranding
Taylor has reinvented herself roughly every two years for the entirety of her career. She’s changed musical genres, sounds, songwriting styles, lyrical styles, looks and themes to keep her image fresh but also cohesive with her overall brand.
She’s stayed relevant for much longer than other pop stars, which demonstrates how effective her rebranding strategy is.
Creating Community
Is there any bigger fandom community than the Swifties? Taylor began creating community with the hidden messages in her lyric booklets and with relatable-but-cryptic Tumblr posts, but has continued to nurture and foster her community of fans over the decades.
When fans feel like they belong, they tend to stay put, and Taylor rewards us for doing so.
Aspirational Marketing
Part of Taylor’s allure is that we imagine what it’s like to be her. Her style, talent, and empire all appeal to our deepest desires: to be rich, famous, and powerful.
You won’t see her shilling for luxury brands, though: her form of aspirational marketing is much more subtle and clever (her first public appearance with Travis Kelce is the ultimate example of this very subtle I-have-it-all-don’t-you-want-it strategy).
Psychology in Marketing: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
The marketing tactics above work for a reason: they’re backed by science and psychological theory. You can’t sell a product without knowing why someone might want to buy it.
Marketers are guided by one overarching psychological theory in particular: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed his “Hierarchy of Needs” in 1943. He suggests that humans have innate needs that need to be met in a specific order, and that these needs can explain our behaviors and motivations.
The bottom of the triangle are our most basic needs: food, water, and shelter. Once we have those things, Maslow theorized, we can move toward attaining our psychological and social desires: family, friendship, belonging, creativity, and self-esteem.
1. Physiological Needs
Basic survival needs such as food, water, warmth, and rest. We must have these before we can move up to number 2, and so on.
2. Safety Needs
Security and safety, including protection from physical and emotional harm.
3. Love and Belonging Needs
Social needs for relationships, friendship, intimacy, and family.
4. Esteem Needs
The need for self-esteem, respect, recognition, and achievement.
5. Self-Actualization Needs
The desire to achieve one’s full potential and personal growth, including creative & intellectually challenging activities.
At the very top of the hierarchy – and most difficult to attain – are our most elusive desires. These include reaching our full potential through self-actualization, creativity, and problem-solving.
Marketers use this hierarchy to target and segment their audiences, and target each level strategically and appropriately for whatever they are trying to “sell” (for our purposes, Taylor Swift is the “product”).
Taylor Swift’s team does this audience targeting especially well, reaching nearly every type of human desire through their various tactics.
Here’s Why Taylor Swift is So Popular
Now that we have the basics down, it’s time to get into the meat of the story.
Below are the major reasons – in my opinion – why the Taylor Swift phenomenon exists, how she got where she is today, and why her fanbase is as loyal and devoted as we are.
I write this list as a teacher and as a lifelong Swiftie, who also has a keen interest in how and why certain cultural phenomenons occur.
For each major reason, I’ll explain where it falls on the hierarchy of needs, as well as the marketing tactics that are applicable, so you can get a clearer picture of how and why these factors have contributed to Taylor’s stratospheric rise.
1. She Emerged At A Time Of Mass-Produced Singers As A Songwriter
When Taylor Swift first came on the scene with her debut album in 2005-2006, the music industry was undergoing a massive shift.
We’d just started to move away from more manufactured pop stars like Britney Spears and N-Sync, and gravitating toward singers who wrote their own songs about real life.
The country world in which Taylor arrived was – at the time – dominated by men, and older men at that (Rascal Flatts, Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw, etc.). There were the occasional younger women like Carrie Underwood in the genre, though she rose up from American Idol, and didn’t write most of her own songs.
The Dixie Chicks had recently been embroiled in controversy, leaving a wide-open space in the country genre for an original female songwriting act.
Taylor Swift emerged at a time when the world was hungry for the type of music that she wrote: personal songs about heartbreak, an original voice, and an honest look at what it’s like to be a female and a teenager (unlike, say, the more unrelatable message of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”).
Add to that the decline of traditional physical album sales in the 2000s – and the rise of MP3 players, smartphones, P2P downloads and the iTunes store – and her music was able to spread like wildfire more naturally than music had ever done ever before.
It was a new world of music marketing and distribution, and Taylor got in on the ground floor with an original sound and style that the world ate up.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 3 and up. The music industry had a low supply of emotional songwriters, and a high demand for more emotional and down-to-earth music.
Marketing Tactics: Consistent & Cohesive Brand Narrative, Storytelling, Knowing Your Audience
2. She Involved Her Fans From The Very Beginning
From her very first album, Taylor spelled out secret messages in the lyric booklets using capital letters. This small puzzle absolutely enraptured fans, and we were immediately intrigued and hooked.
Who was this song about? What was Taylor’s personal life like? Had she been through a nasty breakup just like we had, and was finally putting our feelings to music?
These discreet hidden messages made her music interactive, which very few artists who came before her had done. It also made people want to purchase the physical album, because they wanted to decode this puzzle for themselves.
From the jump, she created a hidden world, we wanted to be let in on the secret, and we would pay good money to be a part of it.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Levels: 4 (achievement), 5 (stimulating creative activities)
Marketing Tactics of Secret Messages: Reward Loyalty, Games, Storytelling, Exclusivity and Closeness, Creating Buzz/Anticipation, Create Community
3. She Writes About Personal But Universal Feelings And Emotions
Taylor is a master storyteller, and uses her own emotions to tap into universal emotions. The best types of songwriters do this: take their own experiences and parlay them into a shared emotional experience with their audience.
Some of her most personal early songs like Dear John and Breathe captured our hearts and let us insert our own heartbreaks inbetween the lines.
Over the decade, her songwriting only grew stronger and more alluring, and she captures what it’s like to grow up as a woman in a man’s world like no other songwriter ever has.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 3 (Love and Belonging)
Marketing Tactics: Consistent & Cohesive Brand Narrative, Storytelling, Knowing Your Audience
4. She’s Empowering
Though Taylor has had her fair share of controversy, we’ve never seen her actively tear down other women like other industry powerhouses.
Is she vengeful when it’s deserved? Yes. But is she vengeful because she’s simply trying to disparage other women? No. She doesn’t step on others to get to the top, and she never has.
We can look up to her because she sets an example for what a woman in power should be: mindful, motivated, persistent, kind-hearted, and empowers others.
She’s not perfect – no one is – but this also just makes her more relatable.
Taylor’s audience are such ride or die fans because we don’t just believe in the art, we believe in the artist. Especially today, in the advent of cancel culture and the #metoo movement, it’s nice to have a celebrity without devastating skeletons in their closet.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 3 (desire for community and belonging), 4 (Self-esteem, respect)
Marketing Tactics: Aspirational Marketing
5. We Want To Be Her
Taylor is a master of marketing, and part of her appeal is that she’s aspirational.
With Taylor, this doesn’t just come down to money and aesthetics (but of course, we all want those things for ourselves, too). Women crave power that we have been disenfranchised from holding.
Taylor Swift holds that power, and by being as close to her as we can, we are trying to grab some of it for ourselves as though through osmosis.
No, liking Taylor Swift doesn’t actually make us more powerful, but it makes us feel like we are.
Being a part of the Swiftie fandom makes us feel like we are capable (like she is), we are important (like she is), and we can conquer the world if we set our minds to it (like she can, and has).
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 4 (desire for achievement), 5 (desire to reach our full potential)
Marketing Tactics: Aspirational Marketing
6. She Is Constantly Evolving
No celebrity in history has changed up her look, her sound, her style, and her vibe as much as Taylor has.
She is a master at reinventing herself, and this is strategic: it keeps us interested, and it keeps new fans coming in droves.
She began in country, moved into pop, veered into folk and indie, and back into pop, all the while maintaining a consistent voice and message.
She knows that the shelf life of a pop star – and especially a female pop star – is short. She essentially resets the clock each time she morphs into a different character, helping her career to stretch farther and faster than her cohorts.
What else this constant shape-shifting does is keep us interested. We are always guessing what she will do next, and she leaves us clues as to where that will be.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 3 (desire for community and belonging: Taylor essentially creates new communities of fans each time she rebrands), 5 (desire for creative and intellectual novelty, which Taylor constantly challenges us with in every reincarnation).
Marketing Tactics: Reinvention & Rebranding, Games, Aspirational Marketing
7. She’s Strategically Illusive
Humans want to solve mysteries. We want to fill in gaps in our knowledge, but not just any gaps: we want to fill in gaps that intrigue us.
The motivational power of curiosity is the driving force behind much of Taylor’s allure and marketing.
When Taylor began leaving secret messages in her liner notes, she had no idea that it would help create a massive interactive phenomenon. But it did, because it made us curious.
The secret messages let us know that there was another narrative happening behind the scenes, and it was a narrative we didn’t get to hear. Naturally, we wanted to fill in that gap because it intrigued us.
This kept us guessing: who was this song really about? What did her ex-boyfriend do to her? Who was that actress in the bathroom?
Over the years, her secret messages spread to different mediums, until she was leaving clues and hints in nearly every appearance and social media post.
Taylor always tells us just enough to pique our interest, but hides just enough to keep us guessing. We’re left constantly interested in what’s going on behind the scenes, and we’re hungry for any little Easter eggs that hint at answers.
Taylor Swift is a mystery that we want to solve, and – like the rise of the true crime genre – we’re obsessed with cracking the case.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 4 (desire for achievement), 5 (desire for intellectual and creative activities)
Marketing Strategies: Reward Loyalty, Games, Storytelling, Exclusivity and Closeness , Creating Buzz/Anticipation
8. She is All of Us
Humans desire connections with other humans. We want to see in others what we see in ourselves – it helps us make sense of the world, and helps us to feel “normal” in relation to other people. No one wants to feel like an outcast.
The Theory of Relatability states that the more similar we are emotionally to what we’re interacting with, the more we will relate to it. Who has displayed a larger number of more relatable emotions than Taylor Swift, both in her massive songbook and throughout her massive career?
Though we can’t relate to Taylor Swift’s physical life (she’s one of the richest, most successful and famous people in the world, who can’t even go grab a latte), we can relate to her emotional life.
The US Weekly column “Stars: They’re Just Like Us!” is their most popular feature for a reason. We want to feel like we have something in common with people that society has put on a pedestal.
Taylor’s real-life, down-to-earth moments make us feel like she’s one of us. From her hilarious post-lasik surgery banana, to her accidentally swallowing bugs at The Eras Tour, to every single lyric about heartbreak, we can relate to her on an emotional level.
This is the central connection that drew fans in, and it’s the central connection that keeps us here. She is not the celebrity showing off her stark-white modernist kitchen; she’s the celebrity putting ice in her wine while having dinner with her BFF, just like we are.
Or at least we think she is, because that’s the image that she portrays, and that’s the image she lets us see. Like all of Taylor’s marketing, this is purposeful and strategic, and it works.
Taylor is the ultimate everygirl, she just happens to have a hell of a lot more zeros in her bank account.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 3 (Love and Belonging)
Marketing Tactics: Consistent & Cohesive Brand Narrative, Storytelling, Create Community
9. She’s On A Hero’s Journey
Taylor Swift has been knocked down and gotten back up again more times than seems humanly possible. She’s the hero who takes the punches and waits for the perfect moment to hit back.
Authors of Conceptions of Leadership, Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals explain that we’re drawn to hero narratives because they give us hope and wisdom, and they can also inspire us to grow and persevere.
We all want to be the hero in our own lives. Taylor’s controversies and comebacks make us feel like the bad times won’t last forever, and the good times will be that much sweeter when we claw our way back to the top.
See my full breakdown of Taylor’s hero’s journey and heroine’s journey to find out more.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 5 (desire to be the best we can be)
Marketing Tactics: Storytelling, Reinvention & Rebranding, Aspirational Marketing
9. The Swiftverse is Vast & Intricate
One of the most essential parts of the Taylor Swift phenomenon is that it’s not just music.
Taylor has created an entire interactive metaverse with her songs, lyrics, albums, eras, costumes, performances, social media, music videos, films, interviews, and subtle hints.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is effective because #1: there’s tons of interconnected source material. And #2, they keep pumping out glossy, high-budget films based on that source material.
Taylor Swift is doing the same thing, but the source material is her, and the glossy, high-budget product is an array of songs, albums, and performance art.
Add to that fans who are always hungry for what’s next, and read into every nail polish color and word she speaks, and you get the Taylor Swift Multiverse (or as I call it, the “Swiftverse”).
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 3 (desire for community & intimacy), 4 (desire for achievement, as in solving Easter eggs), 5 (desire for creative and interactive activities).
Marketing Tactics: Consistent & Cohesive Brand Narrative, Reward Loyalty, Games, Storytelling , Knowing Your Audience, Omnichannel Strategy, Exclusivity and Closeness, Creating Buzz/Anticipation
10. She’s Nostalgic
Because Taylor’s music has been in many of our lives for over a decade, listening to her music can be nostalgic. But nostalgia is not only a (mostly) pleasant emotion: it serves an important purpose.
We change and grow over the years, and sometimes it’s hard to reconcile our past selves with our current selves. Krystine Batcho, PhD explains that nostalgic experiences can unite those two selves and help us come to terms with the narrative of our lives.
So when you’re listening to All Too Well [10-Minute Version] for the 1,200th time, you’re processing everything emotion you were coping with since the song was first released.
This also happens to be why Taylor’s re-records have been so successful. When you listen to 1989 (TV), you’re uniting your 2014 self with your 2024 self.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 2 (Feelings of Safety, which are conjured when we listen to her nostalgic music that reminds us of simpler times, or reminds us how far we’ve come).
Marketing Tactics: Consistent & Cohesive Brand Narrative, Reward Loyalty, Storytelling , Knowing Your Audience, Creating Buzz/Anticipation, Reinvention & Rebranding, Create Community
11. She’s Good for Our Mental Health
The Swiftie fandom is massive and diverse, but – like any other group – we’re drawn to it for a reason. Belonging to a fandom helps us create a sense of belonging and safety.
Psychotherapist Dr. Laurel Steinberg explains that fandoms are shown to have a positive effect on mental health. Feeling like you’re part of a group – even if it’s only online – can help us form a sense of belonging.
During a turbulent time in the world, the Taylor Swift fandom has only grown and strengthened in numbers and in passion.
Why? Because we need something to hold onto that gives us hope, identity, and community.
Targets Maslow Hierarchy Level: 2 (desire for safety) and 3 (desire for friendship, intimacy and community).
Marketing Tactic: Reward Loyalty, Knowing Your Audience, Create Community
Why is Taylor Swift So Popular? Final Thoughts
The above list is, of course, only from my perspective. Industry experts likely have a lot more to say in the matter, and I look forward to the decades of study that Taylor’s career will spawn.
But for me, as a fan since her debut album, this is why I keep coming back. I want to see that candid moment that makes me feel less embarrassed about my own candid moments. I want that Easter egg that points toward repTV because I want to believe something incredible is on the horizon.
But most of all, I want to be comforted. In a world where so little makes sense, and the news cycle is constantly tragic, a Taylor Swift story lightens the load. I’ll take any ray of sunshine I can get, and Taylor Swift burns awfully bright.
More in Taylor Swift 101
- Why is Taylor Swift So Popular?
- Taylor Swift’s Songwriting Style & What Makes it Effective
- Taylor Swift’s Use of Literary Devices, Explained
- Taylor Swift Eras, Explained
- Mapping Taylor’s Hero’s Journey & What Comes Next
- The Ultimate Guide to Taylor Swift’s Literary References
More About The Swiftie Fandom
- Swiftionary: Taylor Swift Dictionary for New Swifties
- Taylor Swift Acronyms and Abbreviations, A-Z
- Taylor Swift’s Career Timeline: Quick Summary
Songs About Taylor’s Career & Legacy
