Mood Board: Every Taylor Swift era, everywhere, all at once

It’s me, hi, I’m the promo, it’s me.

Ahead of ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s 2023 The Eras Tour, Capital One debuted an ad during the World Series that showed Swift as her 10 album personas, aptly named “Multiple Taylors.”

While GSD&M helped execute the ad as agency of record for Capital One, SVP and Group Creative Director Ryan Carroll told us that—just like the rest of us—they were in the dark on Swift’s Eras theme until the last minute.

“We had no idea what the theme of the tour was or that there was even going to be a tour until closer to the announcement,” he said, adding that “when you look back in hindsight at some of the decisions that [Swift’s team] made along the way, it starts to make sense.”

We spoke with Carroll about some of those creative decisions and how they were able to pull off a 10-Taylor venture.

• You’ll never definitely find another like me: According to Carroll, GSD&M worked with Capital One and Swift in 2020 during her Folklore era, creating an ad that poked fun at her song, “Cardigan.” This time, he said GSD&M came up with the idea of having multiple versions of Swift interact with one another, but wardrobe “wasn’t really a detail in the script” until Swift’s team came up with the idea to dress like she did for each album.
• It feels like a perfect night to dress up like ___: Carroll said Swift’s team provided and styled the many outfits needed to pull off the idea. “The cool thing was just watching her kind of assume the personality of the era that she was playing,” Carroll said. “1989 Taylor had a very different vibe than Speak Now and all that, so it was fun watching her put that together.”
• Clonelia Street: Carroll said it took an extensive preproduction process as well as a long day of shooting to make one woman into 10. “When you’re dealing with multiple of the same [person] within the frame, your blocking has to be absolutely perfect. Your camera movement has to be exactly perfect,” he said, adding that “in some aspects, you have to shoot the same scene 10 times in a different wardrobe or outfit.”
• Hunters, meet foxes: When it comes to Easter eggs, Taylor Swift fans are not messing around. Carroll said his team knew that fans’ sharing and engaging with the Easter eggs was going to be a “huge component” of the ad’s distribution. Working with Swift’s team, he said they included things like a Midnights clock at 0:22 and references to Swift’s documentary and songs on the cafe menu at 0:09. “The Swifties, I think, found them within 30 minutes of the commercial airing,” Carroll said.
• House of cards: The goal, according to Carroll, was to drive sign-ups for the Capital One Venture X credit card featured in the ad. He said Capital One being the tour’s presenting sponsor and cardholders receiving early access to tickets were “obviously a huge driver and very newsworthy for Capital One.” Carroll declined to share the number of card sign-ups since the ad was released, but said GSD&M and Capital One are “extremely happy with the results thus far.”