Ever heard of Taylor Swift? How about The Eras Tour?

These are, of course, silly questions. But for the purposes of this text, we would like to introduce you to a different Taylor Swift—not the musician and performer, but rather, the marketer whose careful and effective attention to the 4Ps of marketing (product, place, price, and promotion) have enabled her to disrupt markets, leverage social media, personalize her offerings, delight consumers, innovate new pricing tactics, reinvent supply chains, and define a new way to remunerate employees.

With 2023’s The Eras Tour, Swift achieved rapid and unprecedented success, even as the shows continued to be held in locations throughout the United States and before moving to a literal global stage. Estimates suggest that ticket sales alone will surpass $1 billion, breaking all existing records for concert tours. But beyond those ticket proceeds, Swift rakes in profits from merchandise sales. Fans fortunate enough (and willing to pay enough) to score tickets to an Eras show are eager to snap up shirts, stickers, posters, coloring books, postcards, phone cases, and so on, as proof that they were the Swifties awesome enough to be there at the biggest concert of their time. The gross profit estimated for each show on the tour thus exceeds $13 million—and Swift is playing a lot of shows.

But it is not just the profits that Swift brings in that are remarkable. The concert tour has been a massive boon for the cities in which it appears. Chicago, where she played three shows, set a new record of 97 percent hotel occupancy during those dates. Las Vegas saw its greatest post-pandemic increase in tourism spending when she showed up. In Colorado, the gross domestic product jumped by 140 percent just due to The Eras Tour. According to another estimate, consumer spending linked to Swift’s productions will be around $4.6 billion. Those numbers are hard to even comprehend, but their implications for markets are clear: They’re good. Hotel and tourism operators are benefitting mightily, as are municipalities that enjoy increased tax revenue.

One market that is not quite as happy though is Hollywood. On August 31, Swift dropped a surprise announcement on social media that she would be releasing concert footage, obtained over the course of her six-show August stint in Los Angeles, exclusively in AMC Theaters on October 13. The bombshell took both consumers and movie studios by complete surprise. By creating a nearly direct-to-consumer distribution channel, from the film production arm of her enterprise to readily accessible AMC theaters (which had been struggling financially and are now looking forward to a strong turnaround), she eliminated traditional Hollywood studios from their mediating role. The agreement is unprecedented, and the effects have been equally novel. Fans immediately snapped up $30 million worth of advance tickets—and crashed the AMC website, rather like they did to Ticketmaster when The Eras Tour tickets first went on sale. Furthermore, Swift financed the concert film herself, which enabled her to retain all rights and ownership, which means she gets all the proceeds.

The timing of the movie announcement also highlights her marketing savvy. Rather than waiting for The Eras Tour to come to its completion, the October release date occurs in the midst of the tour dates. Swift recognizes that her notoriety is at perhaps its highest level at the moment, and demand for her products is massive. Furthermore, the target market for the concert film might overlap substantially with that for her concerts, but it is not identical. There are many, many Swifties who simply could not afford to buy concert tickets, which averaged $254 from Ticketmaster but reached tens of thousands of dollars on online resale sites. If they had to travel or stay in a hotel, they would have needed to spend upwards of $1300, according to some estimates. Those fans are thrilled at the opportunity to dress in Eras attire, line their arms with friendship bracelets, and dance in AMC theaters. Concert attendees are also likely to plunk down the price of a movie ticket to relive the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

But Swift is not simply keeping all the money she is set to make to herself. Rather, recognizing the need for each and every concert to go off flawlessly, so that she can avoid service failures that would irritate her fans, she has established a remarkable supply chain. It moves massive quantities of people, electronics, and other required gear from one city to the next, quickly and without too many mistakes. To achieve that feat, she needs dedicated employees, including truckers—an industry that suffers from substantial turnover and labor shortages. To keep her employees dedicated and happy, at the end of July (again, during the midst of the tour itself, rather than after its completion), she provided $55 million in bonuses to all members of the crew. The drivers specifically received about $100,000 each.

Ultimately, all these creative marketing endeavors require that Swift provide the products, services, and experiences that consumers want, when and where they want them. And in that essential sense, Swift is a remarkably good marketer. Her products (songs) resonate with Swifties, who feel as if the songs were created exclusively for them, even if the target market that appreciates the music includes millions of fans. They evoke excitement, emotion, engagement, and close connection. As noted, the timing of the movie release allows Swifties to maintain their ongoing joy and delight with the concert tour, whether they were able to attend a show or not. The pricing also allows virtually everyone who wants to consume her offerings to access them. By broadcasting the footage on around 4,000 geographically dispersed movie screens, she is providing her products in the place consumers hope to find them. Furthermore, the promotional surprise she created by dropping the announcement, without any warning, on social media heightened consumer anticipation of the film to astounding levels.

Taylor Swift is a musician, entrepreneur, and self-proclaimed anti-hero. But perhaps most impressively, she’s an astounding and effective marketer.

Discussion Questions

1. Describe the 4Ps of marketing, as exhibited by Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour.
2. Why is Swift able to appeal so effectively to consumers? What value do her offerings provide them?
3. What other stakeholders are involved in the transactions between Swift and consumers of her offerings?
4. How does Swift leverage various marketing channels to reach consumers?

Sources: Alena Kuzub, “‘Swiftonomics’ or the Smart Business Choices Taylor Swift Makes that Affect the U.S. Economy,” Northeastern Global News, August 11, 2023; Jason Aten, “The Eras Tour Movie Is Proof Taylor Swift Might Be the World’s Savviest Marketer,” Inc., September 3, 2023; Ed Power, “Taylor Swift Just Beat Hollywood Studios at Their Own Game—And They’re Furious,” The Telegraph, September 1, 2023; Taylor Swift, “The Eras Tour Collection,” https://store.taylorswift.com/collections/taylor-swift-the-eras-tour-collection; Cole Anderson and Andy Archuleta, “Swiftonomics: Eras Tour Impact on Colorado,” Common Sense Institute, July 10, 2023; Lucas Shaw, “Taylor Swift Is Making More than $13 Million a Night on Her Tour,” Bloomberg, June 30, 2023; Matthew Belloni, “How the Swiftie Cinematic Universe Came to Theaters,” Puck, September 1, 2023