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The Digital Marketing Podcast
Branding, Strategy and Taylor Swift
00:31:10
In this episode of The Digital Marketing Podcast, Daniel Rowles explores one of the most unexpected but powerful business case studies in modern branding: Taylor Swift! Joined by Kevin Evers, Senior Editor at Harvard Business Review and author of...
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- [00:01]
Daniel Rolls
Welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com My name's Daniel Rolls, and in this episode we are talking branding strategy and, believe it or not, Taylor Swift. So we get reached out to every day by lots and lots of people that would like to either be featured on the podcast or, or to get someone featured on the podcast. We have a lot of PR companies reach out to us, and I had one of the most intriguing outreaches I've ever had. Somebody reached out and said, would you like to speak to Kevin Evers? Because Kevin has written a book called There's Nothing like this. Now, Kevin is an editor at Harvard Business Review, has got a long history of working with some very interesting business titles and projects, but basically he's written a book that says, what's the strategic genius of Taylor Swift? Yep, you heard it right. So basically looking at Taylor Swift's career and saying, why is she so successful? What are the clever moves that she's made? What is the strategy that she's implemented? What are the plans that she's made that have made her so globally, hugely, hugely successful? And actually, the more I read, the more fascinated I was because actually, there's a load of actionable lessons in here and a lot of the things that we talk about in marketing strategy really started to resonate as I walked through the book. Kevin is a very knowledgeable, very well prepped, very highly researched guy who really knows his topic as well and has obviously put a huge amount of work and effort into the book. So it's a fascinating interview. There's loads of practical insights there. If you're not a Taylor Swift fan, if you're not a swifty, don't worry. I wasn't a Swiftie going into this, but I was very, very impressed and I learned a lot. So over to the interview, tell us a little bit about who you are and that will give us some context going forwards.
- [02:03]
Kevin Evers
I'm Kevin. I am a senior editor at hbr. I work predominantly on the book side of the house, which means I acquire and I edit books, work with great authors, helping them shape their ideas and to position their books in the marketplace for optimal success. I. I always have a joke. I edit everything but cookbooks and fiction, it seems. I've edited books on innovation, creativity, high performance, finance, you name it, I've edited a book on it. And I'm a bit of a renaissance man because I. I know all these subjects and I get to work with great authors and I get to work on great books. And that has also helped me in my own writing because I've been able to use all this vast knowledge and apply it to different subjects.
- [02:50]
Daniel Rolls
So what really inspired you to write about this? Because my take on this, the PR companies reach out and say, oh, this amazing book's come out. Would you like to have the author on? And we get a lot of them. And I was like, oh, this really caught my attention because as someone, it's not a swifty, but he's very aware of Taylor Swift. But I've heard from a thousand people, oh, why she's so successful, I don't really get it because they're not the target audience. I was really interested to hear what kind of inspired you in the first place to start writing.
- [03:16]
Kevin Evers
I know I get this question a lot, especially since I'm an HBR editor. People are like, why are you spending so much time writing about Taylor Swift? Shouldn't you be writing about some other company or some other brand? But that's what attracted me to Taylor to begin with. Because she's operating in an industry that's super brutal. The music industry is really fickle. It's really brutish. We tend to cycle through artists, stars, even superstars if there are fashion trends. And Taylor's been doing this for 20 years and she's more popular now than she's ever been. She's reached this Beatles esque phenomenon, this cultural phenomenon at this point. So I wanted to pull back and figure out how she's been able to do it. And the more I look into her career, the more I realize that this could be a great, entertaining book because she's had so many ups and downs, she's gone through so many controversies and there's so much business that I could project onto her career. And that's what excited me the most. I love how I use that word, human centric, because I really felt like I could write a very human book and I could write it in chronological order. We could show her from the time she's 14, 15 years old all the way up to current day 35, and go through every major part of her career and look at the decisions that she made. And that's pretty rare to have the opportunity to do that. So I jumped at it.
- [04:35]
Daniel Rolls
I mean, the amount of research that I've got into the book is clear from the outset because you get into at the beginning and it's talking about her being like 13, 14 years old and this kind of vision that she had for what she was going to be. And I Thought that was really interesting. It's like that clarity of vision seemed to get her to cut through and get her a lot of respect that she wouldn't got otherwise. So it'd be great to hear about her, about that.
- [04:56]
Kevin Evers
This is what surprised me the most, because we normally don't think of a 13, 14, 15 year old as having a very clear vision of who they are and the audience they want to hit, especially an artist. But Taylor really did. She knew that she wanted to write her own songs. That was a strength of hers. And that's not necessarily, or at least at the time, wasn't common in the country music industry. Usually it's professional songwriters who do that, especially if you're a teen artist. Teen artists were not writing their own songs and she wanted to write those songs for an audience of her peers. And that was teenage girls. The consensus in the industry was, I think you need to slow down a bit, that's there's not really a market for teenage girls. And they, those executives were right in many aspects. They had the data and they had the failed experiences to back that up. But Taylor was really persistent. She knew that her friends were listening to country music and she knew that her friends were resonating with her music. And if she didn't have such a clear vision, I'm not sure we'd be talking about Taylor Swift today, because she probably would have waited until she was 18, 19 to release an album, and she may have missed her window. Ultimately, what happened is, and I don't think she was reading Blue Ocean strategy, I don't think she was reading HBR or other magazines to figure out what should my strategy be. But I think she instinctually knew that there was a market that the industry was blind to and that she could hit that market, and she ended up doing that. So she ended up seizing an opportunity that other people had ignored. And because of that, that was a big reason why she found early success in country.
- [06:35]
Daniel Rolls
I mean, that clarity of vision piece, in terms of the record label, I just remember reading the first chapter. I think it was the first chapter where they were talking about she'd left that record label, although they'd started nurturing her because they wanted to kind of build her up and maybe wouldn't kind of push her forward until she was 18. And being strong enough at the age of 13, 14 to have the boldness to do that is quite exceptional.
- [06:52]
Kevin Evers
Her vision enabled her to make some bold decisions that on paper seemed pretty wild to do. And you're right, she had a development deal with RCA Records. RCA was one of the biggest labels on Nashville's Music Row at the time, and they were developing her. Then, after a year, as part of those development deals, the label has a choice. They can sign you to a record deal, they can cut you loose, or they'll extend your development deal. And they wanted to extend Taylor, but they also intimated that maybe you should write some other people's songs or maybe you should perform some other people's songs. And Taylor was getting the hints that maybe they didn't quite believe in her vision and what she ended up doing. She ended up signing with a man named Scott Bruschetta, who was a promotions guy at Universal Label Group. But he had left his label or was in the process of leaving his label to start his own label. It ended up being called Big Machine Records. And that was a pretty wild move because he didn't have funding, he didn't have headquarters, he didn't have a name for his label. But he believed in her vision. He said, I'm never going to tell you to write or perform someone else's songs. And Taylor believed in him. And that ended up being a great decision for her. Because Scott had a lot of skin in the game. He really needed Taylor Swift to succeed. And because there are so many challenges and because the industry, especially the gatekeepers like record executives, but also the people in radio, since they didn't believe that a teenage girl could find success at this time, she really needed someone who could push through and come up with creative ideas to promote her and her work. And it ended up working out.
- [08:32]
Daniel Rolls
I mean, there's some real parallels there with, like, the startup culture of starting from nothing and just having that clear vision to do that and how that label did that. But also, if we go back to your comment a moment ago, in terms of the data wasn't there to back up there with a demand for the music for that particular teenage audience. It's kind of like Steve Jobs. There was a bit of a Steve Jobs thing of like, well, we need this thing. They don't know they want it, but we're going to create it. And you drew that parallel between, actually a lot of the things that she did. She didn't look it up in a book. She did it instinctively. But that's. That's similar to those other kind of great founders and startup growers that we.
- [09:05]
Kevin Evers
Talk about, for sure. And it was also great that she had Scott Bruschetta in her. In her corner, too, because Scott. Scott had sensed that there was A market for this. He had promoted and worked with an artist called Jessica Andrews. She was a teenager, this was years before. And Jessica Andrews didn't really take off, but they did do a grassroots campaign where they would bring her to high schools and she would perform. And he could feel the energy in the room. He could feel that the teenagers in the room were really resonating with Jessica Andrews. And so he had experienced it firsthand. And so when he saw Taylor, he was like, oh, okay. In the past, maybe the product wasn't quite right for the market. Maybe Jessica Andrews wasn't quite the right artist for that market. But Taylor, since she was writing her own songs and they're very personal and they're very much catered to that teenage audience, he thought, I think I have the right product here for this market.
- [10:05]
Daniel Rolls
Well, that talk of product and product fit. I was reading the article the interview did in Fortune, and this idea of job to be done, like she got the job to be done with the music, what the music needed to be to deliver. And I thought it'd be worth hearing from you about that a little bit.
- [10:18]
Kevin Evers
Yeah, it's such a great term. When I think of jobs to be done, I think of just imagine, anytime you buy a product, are we buying it? The product? Because we love the product. Yes. But we're also hiring it to do something for us. And Taylor has always understood that people, her fans in particular, are not buying her music because they love the music. I mean, that's a big part of it, don't get me wrong. But they also want more from her and her music. They want vulnerability, they want connection, and they want intimacy. And the fact that she was very strong from the very beginning, that she should be writing her own songs, they should be from her own perspective, and that they should be geared toward her peers, which at the time was teenage girls was critical to her success, and it continues to be critical to her success since she has such a clear idea of what her fans are hiring her to do. She can evolve and adapt, and she continually makes music that is directly catered to her fans needs and wants. But she's also able to build experiences that no one else has really been able to copy at this point. And she's been doing this for the last 20 years. And I think there's a big reason why her fans stick around for so long and why she's able to bring on new fans as well.
- [11:41]
Daniel Rolls
So there's a whole load of things I want to bring out from that. So that you talked about Experiences and this idea, there's this kind of shared experience by the fans and why the fans are such a powerful kind of fan base and are so passionate about things. Can you talk about that experience piece a little bit?
- [11:54]
Kevin Evers
To me, Taylor has always understood that superstars aren't self made, they're a cultural phenomenon and they're a fan generated phenomenon. So everything she does, I mean, she's obsessively focused on her craft, but she's also equally obsessive about her fans. And the experiences, especially on social media, are pivotal, are so important to her success. And I think she's always shown that she understands that that's a huge part in increasing her popularity, is her fans and social influence and social connection. And you can see this with, with the ERAS tour. One of my favorite examples is the, the popularity of the live streams. During the ERAS tour, there were so many fans who were at the show and they would live stream and, and it created this whole ecosystem on TikTok and Instagram where you would have, you would have gatekeepers essentially who were hosting shows and would take live streams from different people and then spread those on their accounts to other people. They're acting as sort of a central force where people could congregate and watch the concerts. And that's something that Taylor could have monetized. She made more than enough money during the ERAS tour to host streams, to have people pay for those streams. And I'm sure her fans would have shown up in droves to pay for those live streams, but she didn't. She let her fans take control of that. And because of that, those streams spread. Her fans congregated online each night to watch the ERAS tour shows. And I saw a stat that was pretty staggering that during the peak of the eras tour, every day between 200 to 300 million videos of Taylor Swift reviewed. And it's, I mean, it's, it's incredible the, the scope of the, the fandom at that point. And then if you combine that with personalized algorithms, those videos are getting, you know, they're being sent to all of our feeds, essentially. If you've ever had any sort of interaction with Taylor Swift content, you're probably seeing some of that, some of that content. This is another example of how Taylor understands that her fans are critical to her success. And it reminds me a lot of what the Grateful Dead did when they encouraged fans to record their shows and share their shows. Because the Dead also realized that this is all about fan community. And the more we can cater to our super fans the better. And Taylor has always done that.
- [14:42]
Daniel Rolls
I think it's fascinating because if you look at her career, in my mind. Yeah, Taylor Swift. Yes. She's just, you know, she's obviously grown on social media because she's young. And then you go, actually, when she started, it was MySpace. Still, you know, this is. This has been a long career.
- [14:54]
Kevin Evers
Right.
- [14:54]
Daniel Rolls
And. And you can see that engagement of her fans has evolved over that long kind of period of time and the evolving of kind of social media.
- [15:01]
Kevin Evers
Yeah. And the way she interacts on social media has changed pretty dramatically. In the beginning on MySpace, there was an abundance of connection. She was using those platforms every day to build those relationships with her fans. Now that's not really the case. She's not chronically online anymore. Yet it seems like engagement has increased. So in the beginning, I'd say there's this balance between abundancy and scarcity. She would release an album every two years. That was the cycle. And then she would. She would go away and then after two years, she'd release a new album. So there's some scarcity in terms of the content. She was really, you know, making sure she wasn't over saturating the market with content. But there is an abundance of connections. She was constantly online. Now it's switched over the last four years, she's released eight albums. She's really turned on the content fire hose. But when it comes to connection online, she's not really chronically online. She's not really ever present online. But I think a big reason for that is TikTok and her fans take care of that engagement for her. So because of that scarcity, everything that she does, whether she wears something or anytime she engages on social media, it becomes a source of speculation and her fans are like, oh, this must mean something. This must mean something. This must mean something. And then spreads like wildfire because of TikTok. And so it's this really interesting change in her strategy. Yet the more scarce she is, it seems like the more engagement happens these days.
- [16:40]
Daniel Rolls
Well, I've noticed, but from the fact that the fans would study, and you mentioned this when you were talking to Fortune about the level of detail. They'll go to the nuance of every word and every song and what does it really mean? And I think you compared it like to TS Eliot being kind of analyzed, the length of effort that people go to.
- [16:56]
Kevin Evers
Yeah, the fandom is really diverse in their interest. On the one side of the Phantom, you do have people do deep dives. They're looking back at you know, different mythology to. To figure out what her songs mean. They're doing deep lyrical analysis as if they were analyzing T.S. eliot's the Wasteland. But then there's the other, the more fun and wild part of the fandom that resembles true crime communities on Reddit who are really looking at clues and hints, which is something that Taylor has taught them to do, which also increases engagement. It's a pretty, it's a pretty wide ranging fandom and it is full of very passionate and in some cases obsessive fans.
- [17:50]
Daniel Rolls
And on that, I mean, her ability to pivot and to change, I mean, if you look at some of the big kind of public relations crisis that she might have had, or the ability to pivot with fans changing and so on as well, how does that really kind of demonstrate her long term success? And some examples. That would be great.
- [18:10]
Kevin Evers
Yeah, I think it's critical. Very early on in her career, she was all about trust and consistency. She didn't change that much. She changed enough so her fans felt like they were getting something new, but didn't change so much that she would alienate them. I think when she got to about her fourth album, she realized, hey, I'm not a teenager anymore. I'm moving into my 20s. And that can be a really tough transition for a lot of artists. I'm sure everyone listening can think of a teenage artist that did not sort of make it into their 20s. And Taylor at that point realized that she did have to make a change. So even though she was really dominating the country market, she slowly transitioned into pop music. And many people, especially music critics, said, oh, that's inevitable, of course, because her music is becoming more and more pop. Of course she's going to move to pop. But from a business standpoint, it didn't make a lot of sense for her to leave country music behind because she had, she was doing what a lot of brands, a lot of companies would kill for. She had dominated one market and then she had slowly infiltrated another one. She could have her cake and eat it too. But by moving to pop music, she was completely leaving behind country music. She was leaving behind all those relationships. But I think she understood that she needed to make a pivot, she needed to change, and especially because her own musical tastes were changing. And although she received a lot of pushback from her management team and her record label, she said, I'm not going to put three country songs on this album. This album was 1989, released in 2014, and she remained persistent about it. She's Like, I'm not doing it. My fans are going to see right through this. This will be inauthentic. And I think a big reason why she's able to make these pivots while staying true to her core values is she's in full control of what she's doing. She's not one of these artists that shop for hits or shop for producers. She's in full control. She's writing the songs. They're all coming from her personal experience. And this goes back to the job to be done. She really understands what her fans need and want from her. And it's all about that intimacy and connection. So if you look behind the hits and you listen to the deep cuts on the albums, that's what they're getting. They're getting really hyper personalized songs. And it doesn't matter if she's singing pop music or if it's indie rock or if it's country, that core value, that job to be done remains the same.
- [20:42]
Daniel Rolls
I think there's something interesting. There is. About that core value and then talking about how she's navigated the music industry as well. Because if you go back to her original recordings being purchased and then I think this was just after the book was finished when actually she's brought back the rights to all of her work as well. I mean, a lot of people, this won't be familiar. So maybe just talk about that narrative and then actually what we can maybe learn from that.
- [21:03]
Kevin Evers
I love this story. I love this power move on her part because it really shows who Taylor Swift is. I think a lot of people look at her and they see the sequins, the glitter, the Louboutin boots, and they can't look past that. I think in music, we tend to hold in high regard our transgressive rock stars or transgressive pop stars, whether it's Bob Dylan or Radonna and Taylor Swift, from the outside doesn't look like that. She looks like she's not challenging the status quo. She looks like she is the status quo. But her decision to re record her older music was a really punk rock move. It's really one of the most punk rock moves in music history. In my mind. She had no control over who her master recordings were sold to. Her Scott Bruschetta ended up selling his label along with her masters to a man named Scooter Braun. And Taylor was not happy with that for a whole host of reasons. And she made no money on that deal. She still received royalties when those songs were streamed but received no money from that deal. And she always wanted to own her own master recordings, but wasn't really given the chance or didn't really feel like she could do that. So once they were sold, she had no leverage in this situation. Even though she's a huge superstar, she had signed a contract when she was 15. She had no legal recourse. So what does she do? She decides, well, if I want to reclaim ownership of that work, I'll just re record those albums. Which is a wild idea. This is something that Prince had threatened to do in the 90s. He had a famous battle with Warner Brothers, but he never followed through. Because on paper it seems really odd to ask your fans to not listen to the music that they had grown up listening to the music that's so intertwined in their own memories and experiences. But because Taylor has such a great relationship with her fans and she's so good at framing things for her fans and talking about how these things mean so much to her personally, her fans went along with it. So those RE recordings, called Taylor versions, did exactly what she wanted them to do. They did diminish the value of her original recordings. They all went to number one on the Billboard charts. They were all hits. And those Taylor versions were streamed more frequently than the older versions. And people were buying them at a fast clip much more than they were buying the older music. And then, I mean, the big surprise is when she actually bought back her original recordings because she had spent all this time, all this energy, diminishing their value, asking her fans to go along with her on this ride, at which they did, and then she buys back the recordings. But it's also a pretty. A pretty ballsy power move because she did do what she wanted to do. She diminished their value and then just bought them back. Because once those recordings had changed hands multiple times, they ended up with a firm called Shamrock Capital. And because Taylor did these Taylor versions, if they wanted to offload those assets, who are they going to sell them to? Like, no one would want those assets. The only one who could really buy them back was Taylor Swift herself. And that's because she made the Taylor versions. So for me, this will go down as one of the most fascinating power struggles in music industry history. And there were a lot of winners here. Don't get me wrong. Scott Bruschetta made hundreds of millions of dollars. Scooter Braun made hundreds of millions of dollars when he offloaded those assets to Shamrock. And Shamrock, by all accounts, recouped their initial investment and did receive royalties on those recordings. But I think Taylor Swift is the real winner here.
- [25:00]
Daniel Rolls
So with that in mind, I mean, you know, from a brand manager and personal storytelling point of view, that's a phenomenal narrative that's running in the background behind all this authenticity as well. Why is it then you think that if you look at her success, if you look at the battles that she's gone through and she's proven herself, she's shown everyone who's boss, she's been driven. Why is she not compared to the Beatles or Elvis or someone else like that as well? And there were some people that will go for that, go, well, she's not. But why is that the case?
- [25:28]
Kevin Evers
There are a lot of reasons for that. Like a big reason, like, let's be honest, it's because of the artist she is and the audience she's singing to. The fact that she's especially very early on in her career, since she started as a teenager and was singing to teenage girls, that's not an audience that many people take that seriously. I mean, it even happened to the Beatles early on. The fact that they were singing to teenage girls. I mean, think of the term Beatlemania. That wasn't necessarily a term of endearment. It was if these teenage girls weren't. Weren't rational or weren't thinking or weren't serious, they were just driven by emotion. But of course, we're all driven by emotion when we listen to music. Music. I think that's a. That's a big part of it. I don't think she's taking. I don't. I think in some corners of the Internet and some corners of the music business, she's not necessarily taken that. That seriously. People really hold her in high regard as a business person, but maybe they don't think that she's a great musician. I completely disagree with that. I think she. She is fulfilling a need that no one else is really fulfilling for her fans. And I think she's a great lyricist and a great songwriter. So I think that all has. Has something to do with it. In my mind, she does belong in that group. I think she belongs among that pantheon of music legends, those music legends that are great musically but also turned into cultural phenomenons. So that's the Beatles, that's Michael Jackson, that's Elvis, that's Madonna. Because if you think about it, she is operating in an industry that those other four artists weren't operating in. The music industry today is. I don't even think this is debatable. Is a much more Difficult industry to navigate. The Beatles are operating in a more or less monocultural environment, and they did an amazing job of navigating that environment. But music today has splintered into millions of niches. We've gone from digital to streaming. There's been a lot of disruption and change. And Taylor has been able to turn those challenges into opportunities. And she is more popular now than she's ever been. The ERAs tour $2 billion highest grossing tour of all time. So I really think that Taylor deserves her flowers. I know she receives a lot of breathless praise, but she also receives a lot of unwarranted criticism. And even though she's only 35 years old, I would definitely put her among that group.
- [28:04]
Daniel Rolls
I was just going to add to that as well because she's still so young. There's a lot still to come, and there's a lot still to happen as well. I mean, what do you kind of. If you had to predict where you think it's going next and what she's doing next, where would you. Where would you kind of look at that?
- [28:17]
Kevin Evers
I would say that I don't think she'll start making music. You imagine I try to put myself in her shoes or her Louboutin boots after the ERAS tour, the last ERAS tour show. I mean, could you imagine what she was feeling? It had to be exhilarating, but it also to be daunting at the same time. Like, how do you. How do you top that? And she's had other peaks in her career that didn't feel like she'd be able to top it, but here she is. She already topped it. Whatever she does next will be completely different than what she did with the ERAS tour. This is what she's always done well. She's always adapted. And she always makes music first decisions. She makes decisions that are based on what she wants to do musically, and then the strategies come second. She has a reputation for being very calculated, but I don't see her like that. I really feel like she's more of what is my muse telling me to do? And I'm going to go where the music takes me and then I'll come up with all these. These masterful strategies.
- [29:13]
Daniel Rolls
Well, there's a great quote from Wasn't that she said that if a man does something, it's strategic. If a woman does it, it's calculated. Yeah. And she does very much seem to be working on a kind of a gut instinct that she has with things as well. So there's a huge amount of lessons in the book. For marketers and entrepreneurs. I mean, what's something specifically that people can action when they've, when they've kind of read the book, do you think that they can kind of take away.
- [29:34]
Kevin Evers
Be as obsessed with your customers as your product. This is what Taylor has always done. This. Her first manager told her, hey, if you want to be a superstar, you need to meet hundreds of thousands of people. And Taylor goes above and beyond for her fans. I mean, she's completely obsessed with her fans and she'll find new ways to delight her fans. The ERAS tour is a great example. She could have played two hours of her greatest hit show, her fans would have walked away joyous. But she played three and a half hours. Setlist spanned 40 songs. And that comes from a place of obsession. Yes, but also humility. I think she really knows that the driver of her success is her songs. Yes. But it's really her fans that really sort of drive the social influence and create more fans and create more engagement and more connection. So the one thing I would say, especially for entrepreneurs, is you definitely need to be as obsessed with your customers as you are with your product.
- [30:39]
Daniel Rolls
So we will put the link to the book. There's nothing like this in the show. Notes target Internet.com forward/podcast. Or we'll link through to Kevin's LinkedIn bio as well. You can see all the different things that he's up to in there and so on as well. Well, Kevin, thank you so much being so generous your time and being here today and it's been a real pleasure to talk to you.
- [30:54]
Kevin Evers
Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
- [30:57]
Daniel Rolls
For more episodes resources to leave a review or to get in contact, go to targetinternet.com podcast.