Mark Mayer: Marketing like a superstar: Lessons from Taylor Swift

Before diving into this column, I’d like to briefly introduce myself.

I’m a marketing professor at Indiana University Indianapolis’ Kelley School of Business, and over the past two decades in academia, I’ve often considered branding at a deep, big-picture level. But before that, I was a brand manager for iconic brands like Advil and Planters (at one point I literally WAS Mr. Peanut, wearing a giant inflatable suit and tights and dancing around with a cane—no video is available, thank goodness).

This brand management experience developed my practical eye for strategies that foster strong consumer connections and loyalty. So now, when I look at a marketing phenomenon and try to draw lessons from it, I generally use both the practical, real-world lens and the academic one.

I’m also Kelley’s resident Taylor Swift expert, a role I didn’t intentionally pursue but ended up with because I have a third lens to add—a personal one, as a casual fan (favorite albums: the two COVID-era masterpieces “Folklore” and “Evermore”) but more important the dad of a die-hard, friendship-bracelet-wearing, knowing-every-lyric-of-every-song, 100% Swiftie daughter. A dad who, on one of the more ridiculous days of my life, literally hit refresh for hours on Ticketmaster’s website—while teaching and then through a faculty meeting—to score tickets to the Chicago show as a high-school graduation present.

The Eras Tour stop in Indy featured three shows with incredible excitement, one of the biggest ads I’ve ever seen (kudos on that JW Marriott masterpiece), and an economic benefit for the city projected into the nine-figure range.

Through all these lenses, I see Taylor Swift not just as an entertainer but as a masterful brand strategist who can provide lessons not only for the entertainment industry but also for just about any business’s brand. Here are some of my top ones:

1. The Eras Tour delivers amazing value. A shorthand definition for value is “what you get for what you give up,” and this value proposition is fundamental to every brand. Consider the Eras tour: Tickets are expensive (especially when the secondary market is factored in), but the concerts are incredible.

They are praised for the overall spectacle, but also for attention to detail, from stage aesthetics (stream it on Disney+ if you haven’t seen it; I’ve been to dozens of concerts and have never seen anything even in the same ballpark as those sets) to the immersive fan experiences. The set list is 40-plus songs! It’s over three hours, sometimes closer to four! What does that add up to? My daughter had high expectations, but the show exceded them. Or in her words? “Unbelievable. Best day of my life.”

The lesson: Value doesn’t always mean a low price. People will happily pay more for amazing experiences.

2. Sometimes marketers look at building a strong brand as if they control every single detail and as if what they decide (for instance, the central message of an advertisement) will automatically insert itself into their customers’ brains.

But think about Taylor Swift—she understands that her brand is co-created with her audience. Brand equity lives in people’s minds, not in a PowerPoint deck. Swift’s brand equity isn’t just about what she puts forth; it’s shaped by the associations that fans hold, the strength of those associations, and the emotions they inspire.

Swift goes out of her way to connect with her fans, to surprise and delight them in special ways (like an unexpected album drop during a tour, for instance) and in doing so creates new associations and strengthens existing ones. My daughter has grown up not just listening to Taylor Swift, but also feeling like she knows her.

The lesson: Building a strong brand is about embracing that it’s a two-way street.

3. We can’t really talk about Taylor Swift’s success without talking about Swifties. From her early days as a country artist, she’s used storytelling in her lyrics to connect with fans.

She writes songs that feel personal and draw in her listeners. But she also uses social media masterfully to connect fans to her journey, like when she takes stands on things like her quest to “reacquire” her music catalog through Taylor’s Version releases or her stance on politics.

Since she’s authentic to her fans, she enables an authentic community, which for years has taken on an incredible life of its own. Building a strong brand community means giving up some control of the brand, and truly embracing that previously mentioned two-way street. She’s done that.

The lesson: Building a powerful connection with customers is key, and a strong brand community is often an earned result of those connections.

4. Last but absolutely not least: I believe the most important aspect of Taylor Swift’s brand is the consistently high quality of her music. Her music and songwriting are obviously beloved by fans, but they are critically acclaimed as well—even by tastemakers like Pitchfork magazine. She’s won the Grammy for Album of the Year four times!

And whether her album is country, or pop, or indie, or all of the above, the songwriting is impeccable. As my daughter says: “She writes amazing ballads AND bangers.”

The lesson: Only with high quality at its core can a brand succeed at points 1-3.

Swiftonomics—Taylor Swift’s measurable impact on the economy—is a real phenomenon. Her brand is possibly the strongest in the world right now—and we could probably hit another four (or 400, honestly) key points.

But perhaps the biggest lesson is this: If you’re someone who runs a brand, or a small-business owner thinking about your own, think about Taylor Swift. Instead of starting that thinking with your personal attitude, or just looking at her success in amazement, take a step back and think about the “why” of her success. There might just be some superstar marketing ideas in that thinking for you, too!•

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Mayer is clinical associate professor of marketing at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Indianapolis.