Why some brands went beyond social to celebrate Taylor Swift’s album release

The US might only have 11 federally recognized holidays, but a Taylor Swift album release day just might qualify as No. 12—especially if brand celebrations are taken into account.

On October 3, Swift released her twelfth studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, and several brands used the opportunity to up their marketing ante. It’s not the first time that brands have jumped at the opportunity to get involved in the pop star’s milestones. But while her album announcement and engagement news had a flurry of brands reacting via social media, Showgirl’s official release inspired brands like Uber, Spotify, and Baked by Melissa to get involved beyond social media, rolling out tangible products and pop-up events to mark the occasion.

“Because the Taylor Swift universe is so broad…we can tap into it in different ways,” Georgie Jeffreys, head of marketing for Uber in the US and Canada, said.

For brands going the extra mile, doing something IRL offers one way to stand out among Swiftie-centric brands that may all be trying to get in on the hype.

“When everyone’s doing something, it’s not special to do that thing,” Douglas Brundage, founder and CEO of brand studio Kingsland, told us during Swift’s album announcement phase. “You have to be additive to the culture.”

Spotlight on

On album release day, Uber Eats partnered with Best Friends Animal Society to put on an event called Uber Showcats that featured adoptable cats along with charm jewelry-making stations and photo ops in New York, LA, and Nashville. In total, more than 1,000 people attended, and 28 cats were adopted, the brand said.

The event was aimed at spotlighting Swift’s love of cats along with nodding to Uber’s own history with furry friends, Jeffreys said. In Uber's early days, it ran a promotion that let users book 15-minute cuddle sessions with adoptable cats.

“A lot of brands get involved these days around the Taylor Swiftdom, and…we felt that we had a role to play,” she told Marketing Brew. “We could bring it to life in lots of different angles, both for our rides app, through our delivery app, and by connecting with Uber’s DNA and roots with Uber Kittens.”

While having a brand connection to the Taylor universe helped inform Uber’s participation, its users didn’t need to be aware of the brand’s own kitten history for it to make sense, and Jeffreys said the company’s efforts were designed to help fans celebrate.

In contrast to Swift’s other recent cultural moments, which came with an element of surprise, this more unique activation was made possible with the gift of advance notice.

“When you have the opportunity, like what we did, where you have a little bit more lead time…it obviously opens the aperture of how you can activate and how you can bring ideas to life,” Jeffreys said.

Spotify also took advantage of a longer lead time to activate around Showgirl, one that was even slightly longer than other brands’ due to the music streamer’s relationship with Swift’s team. On social media, Spotify posted images of billboards with Spotify codes and the album cover around the time that Swift announced Showgirl. But for the album release itself, Spotify hosted a three-day immersive activation that included new lyric reveals and allowed fans to search for and engage with the pop star’s famous Easter eggs.

“We use the time to be quite intentional, and to think [through] every reveal that came through the activation,” Leroy Harris, global head of music marketing at Spotify, told Marketing Brew, later adding that “It’s really about us being the brand that’s able to add a layer of touchability to this exciting moment and really make it something beyond the music.”

Glitzy debuts

Many brands have capitalized on the power of a major Taylor Swift moment throughout her career, but The Life of a Showgirl inspired certain brands to get in for the first time or in new ways.

KitchenAid, which makes a cult-favorite stand mixer, used the album to release its first-ever fan-inspired product, giving fans a chance to win one of 12 sparkly orange mixers in the week leading up to the album’s release. This followed Swift’s album announcement in August, when the brand was one of many making social posts featuring products in the now-Taylor-associated color—but KitchenAid opted to make the product real in time for the album release.

The cupcake brand Baked by Melissa, meanwhile, hadn’t posted about Swift’s new album ahead of last week’s release, but the brand released a limited-edition themed cupcake pack tied to the album for launch week. Founder and CEO Melissa Ben-Ishay said the move was “a no-brainer.”

“I knew that it was going to be successful because you could feel the love and the passion that went into it from my team,” Ben-Ishay told us. “It’s a cultural moment that also gave my team a chance to work on something that they felt a connection to.”

When the cupcake pack became available, the brand’s account took the opportunity to post about it. It marked a departure from her brand’s usual style of content, which is normally founder-led. But the opportunity to show off the Taylor-powered product was too good to pass up.

“Quite honestly, I posted it to social because I was just so excited,” Ben-Ishay said. “Organic social is very sacred to me. I really value the community and the relationships I’ve built, and that’s where I give recipes and just connect on a more human level. But when we saw the response from the public, it did feel like I was just adding value and giving people more of what they want.”