From boardroom to boombox

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last decade or so, and even if listening to her squeaky-clean brand of inoffensive pop music is your idea of hell, chances are you’re familiar with American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift.*

Swifty has a new album out today and, again, there’s a fair chance you already knew that, as it has been marketed far and wide, rendering its existence more or less unavoidable.

The interesting thing here is the way that the album has been publicised. Not for Taylor the traditional mediums of chat show appearances, adverts on the sides of buses and buildings or endless promos on Capital FM. Instead, the majority of the leg work has been done in collaboration with mega corporations. From deals with Spotify and YouTube Music, to TV adverts sponsored by credit card company Capital One, to her appearance on ALL Amazon packaging for a limited period, regardless of what you’ve ordered, the message is clear: ignorance isn’t an option. Resistance is futile.

The times they sure are a-changing. Until now, artists have religiously slogged their way from one end of the country to the other to promote the release of their new music, whether they’re being interviewed by Graham Norton in a spot-lit studio for BBC One or Joe Bloggs in his mum’s garage for underground radio. Not anymore.

Clearly, not every band has the same commercial appeal Taylor Swift has but with the launch of her latest, surely soon-to-be number one, album, she might just have changed the way music is marketed forever.

 

*She’s brilliant, stop lying to yourself.

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