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The Penta Podcast Channel is home to all of Penta's podcasts, including the Macrocast and What's At Stake: A Penta Podcast. The Macrocast, produced by Penta and Markets Policy Partners, features weekly insight and analysis on the latest macroeconomic trends. What's at Stake: a Penta Podcast features in-house experts and often special guests for analysis on the biggest issues shaping business and public policy.
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Penta pop: The Taylor Swift economy
This week's episode of What's At Stake examines the phenomenon known as the Taylor Swift economy. Host and Senior Partner Kevin Madden sits down with colleagues Isabel Nieves, Runal Patel, Bianca Schwam Auriemo, and Camryn Banks to analyze how Taylor Swift's latest album, "The Tortured Poet's Department," demonstrates her impact beyond music and into economic ecosystems across industries and global markets. The group also broke down the album's reception and the work involved in promoting and protecting Swift's brand.
The team then dives into the businesses, entrepreneurs, and individuals whose livelihoods depend on the entertainment empire Swift has built, including concert venues, endorsing brands, and ultimately, cultural influence.
Music, business, and culture are all examined in this exciting episode—centered on the one-and-only Taylor Swift. You don't want to miss it!
Taylor Swift is the biggest star in the world. She has the biggest album in music, she's had the most successful live tour in history, but she has something more. Taylor Swift has an entire economy revolving around her. She's more than just the music. Taylor Swift has people and businesses across every different industry with some level of dependence on her music and her brand. On this podcast episode, penta goes pop and we break down how Taylor Swift's new album, the Tortured Poets Department, showcases the phenomenon known as the Taylor Swift economy. The Penta team will give you our hot take on the album, its reception and the work that goes into promoting and protecting the Taylor Swift brand. I'm your host, kevin Madden, and I'm joined by other members of the Penta team, taylor Swift superfans Isabel Nieves, runal Patel and our podcast producers Lizzie Johnson, cameron Branks and Bianca Auriemma. So I'm going to start off with Runal.
Speaker 2:What's your take on the album? It's a great question, um. In the words of taylor swift on this album. Let's hereby conduct this post-mortem um of her post-mortem.
Speaker 1:Should we have a bell that dings every time somebody uses a taylor?
Speaker 2:swift lyric this, this podcast is going to be ding after, ding after ding. So sorry I need to leave, actually, if that's the case. Yeah, so some background about me. I became a fan of Taylor in 2020 with Folklore, which I think I wrote in my notes that I think that's actually not to pin this on myself, but I think that's where her meteoric rise that we see, that we saw so dramatically in 2023, really started.
Speaker 1:But on this album. Why is that? Because she just crossed over to where sad suburban dads like me actually started listening to it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And you instead of just 14-year-old girls Indie.
Speaker 2:dad rock island is where she decided to go when she was quarantining whereas the rest of us were at home.
Speaker 2:No, I think something about folklore in Evermore and the escapism that she explored there invited a whole new class of people to explore her music and to take it seriously in a way that those of us not me but other people who were so far ahead of the times knew that she was capable of this intense songwriting, this incredibly relatable experience, this profundity in music. It forced the rest of us to start paying attention. It forced and you know, obviously she was an awards show darling but, you know, despite the fact that at that point she had already won two Grammys for album of the year, I think a lot of people still underestimated her. And in taking on this very different genre which you know if you've followed her career, you know that she's done again and again forced people to take her seriously. And then combine that with the Errors Tour and its genius in making everyone dive deep into nostalgia and discover all of these music and their eras of their own lives. I think it really shows just how she was able to build this rocket.
Speaker 4:I'd even call her a mastermind.
Speaker 1:Ding, ding ding. I think a lot of that's right. I think the pandemic too, and just the isolation everybody was feeling and the ability to go really deep on an album like Folklore. That was very deep. I also think you know, like here I am, I'm like a 50 plus I'm not going to go into exact numbers here, but 50 plus male who became a Taylor Swift fan also through the introduction of Folklore, largely because I think it was because the production of that sound came from members of the national, and the national is like the sad, sad dad's rock band Right. And so, uh, like the appreciation I always used to be like man.
Speaker 1:Why do people love Taylor Swift, this obsession with Taylor Swift? And then there I am sitting in like my house during the pandemic, having coffee every single morning, listening to folklore over and over and over, and I'm like I totally get it All right. So enough of the mansplaining, we're going to move to Isabel and Isabel, I'd love to hear your take on the album. What did you like about it and your overall reaction to some of the fervor around it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I definitely have loved the album so far, still listening to it, still picking some of my favorites.
Speaker 4:I think it's been really interesting to kind of dissect it a bit and have all the major swifties dissect it for me yes because you know, taylor said that she's written these songs over the past two years and we've seen a lot come out of her from the past two years. You know she's been in the public more. We've seen a lot come out of her from the past two years. You know she's been in the public more. We've gotten to experience so much more of taylor. Um, you know, and like you've said, dads have been loving her, getting to bond with her um over the whole nfl with their kid, with their, with their, their children, their daughters right um, because now we're seeing this whole crazy nfl Travis Kelsey, taylor Swift, media Omnipresence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, I mean, you almost couldn't avoid it this year.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly, so I'm definitely loving.
Speaker 1:Are you flipping through like you're going through your song list? Yeah, oh, ok, that's OK. Like our listeners need to know how you are operating in your podcast element.
Speaker 4:So I'm definitely loving so High School, because I've seen a lot of references that it's definitely about, you know, her and Travis Kelsey's relationship and you know, just kind of looking at that retroactively and seeing how the relationship has panned out. If you look back at you know Joe Alwyn and her relationship that was really secretive. You know nothing ever got out about that. I don't know if that was her doing, his doing, both of them, you know. But it's really fun to see this new rise of Taylor and her just being herself and I think we're seeing that. We've always seen that in her music but we're definitely seeing that even more in this album.
Speaker 1:Does this album have an identity? The way Red had an identity, folklore had a very unique identity, a new sound, and this one you know if I had any criticism. I'm like in the Taylor Swift phase now, where a lot like Ryan Adams for me is, even when I even the songs that aren't my favorite, I'm like, okay, I get what he's trying to do there. I think I'm like that with Taylor Swift songs, which is like that's a really good song, even though I can't remember its name and it's not my favorite. Is there an identity here that maybe the more the late stage fans like myself aren't seeing?
Speaker 4:I think, I don't know. I think that identity could still be developing. I think there could be a mix. I'm definitely getting a bit of like 1989 vibes.
Speaker 1:So you're seeing some like different extensions from other albums.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely Like in. I Can Do it With a Broken Heart, definitely some 1989 kind of tones in there and I'm a 1989 girly at heart that's your favorite album.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was my first concert I ever went to.
Speaker 4:So you know, taylor swift.
Speaker 1:She's really been my music journey what's been the reaction from other t swift fans? I mean, it seems like everybody's all in on this.
Speaker 2:It's like so I I guess I didn't actually answer your question about what I thought about the album I. I just started talking about folklore. No, you did Well, but I, I, I think it's I, I. I will maybe jump on as the voice of dissent and say that this is not my favorite album of hers at all.
Speaker 1:But you like it.
Speaker 2:I like it kind of. I think maybe.
Speaker 1:Battle no. I want to hear more of this.
Speaker 4:Yeah, battle. No, I want to hear more of this. I set the record straight I wouldn't say it's my favorite album, but I'm really learning to like it, giving it some listens, and it'll definitely continue to be on my Spotify rack this year.
Speaker 2:Isabelle and I were quite literally physically standing by the water cooler earlier today and talking about Taylor Swift, and we both talked about how our favorite album is 1989. I think I read this album as a bit unedited and a bit too much, and I also read it as too sonically similar to her past work For me, I thought. After Midnight's came out, I was like this is great. I think I want to see less of Taylor and her producer, jack Antonoff, and her producer, aaron Dessner, and see her explore other producers, other muses, other ideas. One of the things that I've so appreciated listening to her discography is her ability to reinvent herself, her ability to explore genres and her ability to look through all sorts of facets of life, and I'm seeing repetition in a way that seems stale to me and in a lot of ways you know, like it's a formula.
Speaker 1:There's a formula. I saw an Instagram meme where there was a woman, like at a piano, and she was basically saying and this is how a Taylor Swift song goes. Now I go high, now I go low, now I repeat the chorus, and making fun of or mocking this idea that Taylor Swift has a formula that she sort of applies to every single song. Now I think the thing that I would disagree with on that formula works. It's what people want. It's the same way with any of my favorite bands. I know when my favorite guitarist comes in, or like, for example, jane's Addiction. You know the fact that Eric Avery's bass like that's what I'm listening for. I know what I'm getting when I when I listen to my favorite Jane's Addiction song.
Speaker 4:So but isn't that what we love about Taylor is that she doesn't always follow the same genre. You know she started off kind of country girl, then went into, you know, pop, went on and had her edgy phase with Reputation. I think that's kind of what a lot of people love about her. There's music for everyone. And while her albums and some of her albums as they're developed may follow some formulas, she does definitely switch it up.
Speaker 1:So I want to bring in Cameron, because there is one metric that matters in the record industry whether or not people liked an album, and that's are they buying it. That's right, and Cameron, give us a quick rundown on some of the metrics related to did this album land.
Speaker 6:How many people?
Speaker 1:bought it? How many people streamed it? What do you have for us?
Speaker 6:absolutely so. This album has definitely taken the world by storm. I think you know. Whether you like it or not, it's definitely on your radar. I do want to highlight, before we get into the numbers, just how streams and buying albums has changed over the years. Um, and maybe conversations about, like, how do we compare pre-stream sales and uh, or pre-internet like music sales and streams, uh to the ones that we have now.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Because I mean, I remember having to wait on you. You guys don't remember this, You're all too young. I had to wait online to get an album when it was when it was coming out, and now here it is. I had a CD player Everybody's got a supercomputer in their pocket with the world's history of music sitting on their streaming service. But what do the numbers look like? Yeah, give us a, give us a.
Speaker 6:Yeah. So the Torsford Poets Department generated seven hundred and ninety nine million on demand official streams only in the United States in the first week.
Speaker 2:And then in first week and then in one week. It's incredible.
Speaker 6:Yeah, In one week actually technically not even a full week from the 19th to the 24th. That's the most updated number I have here, Almost 800 million.
Speaker 1:That, that, so that that's got to be a record right.
Speaker 6:It is we can get into the record. So she broke the single week streaming record in the United States for an album and she also has broken a pretty unique record the most sales of a vinyl album in one week. People are still using vinyls. I think around that time that you were sipping coffee and listening to folklore in 2020.
Speaker 1:I am a vinyl guy.
Speaker 6:Yeah, people were buying record players again.
Speaker 1:I love vinyl. Can I tell you guys, why? The main reason I love vinyl is it forces you to listen to the album. I think the way the artists want it to present it as a larger work, rather than song by song by song or stream by stream. And when you put and my, my sons are just they've kind of marvel at it it's like I brought out like a huge giant, like dinosaur, fossil, when I'm like, yeah, like let's put this album on and you're going to listen to it all the way through, no skipping over, and I think it's great to see that vinyl is coming back. I also think the sound is richer and more full.
Speaker 2:Well, taylor is an album artist, you know, for I think I think this year, you know, just being the scope beyond just Taylor, I think we're seeing a bit of a, a renaissance of um, of the album as a concept, as an art, as a, as a genre, as an art form, um, but for a while there, when the world was really turning to singles and lots of, lots of, you know, of our favorite artists were turning maybe away from the idea of the album, especially in pop, taylor was has very consistently throughout her career been an album artist and so therefore also, I think, uniquely suited to vinyl.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was just going to say I have seen a bit of criticism, though, on bringing the vinyls back. Um, while we are embracing the vinyls and that's great A lot of artists have brought back, you know, various versions of the same vinyl, and they're incentivizing listeners to buy every single version of the vinyl, even though it's basically the same one, just so that they can have this like little piece of history. Or maybe they're incentivizing it with a bonus song that other users on streaming platforms aren't going to be able to listen to, and some music artists, like Billie Eilish, have even called out artists for this.
Speaker 1:Really why? And the criticism being that you're basically exploiting your fans.
Speaker 4:That and it's an environmental waste because fans are buying multiple versions of the same album just in flamingo, pink and aquamarine.
Speaker 1:I think there's something different about the experience. I mean, like I, people are you know their criticism and whom I criticize billy eilish, another we get that can be an entire podcast or of our fandom for billy eilish. I think she's an incredible singer and songwriter. Um, I think that people like the listening different, the, the different listening experiences that come with that. And then this there's an economics lesson in here for all of us. We work on the market dynamics of issues like this all the time as well, but there's always every very valuable asset always has a secondary economy revolving around it. So if you have a really good album, there's going to be another secondary market, extra sales, extra songs you know lyrics being added to certain versions of it, dance versions of remix versions of certain songs.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for the vinyls. I think it's really cool. I love seeing them in people's houses just playing them. But I think the main criticism is that it's just the same version of the vinyl.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:And people are buying. The same consumer is buying three versions of the same one.
Speaker 1:I want to call Cameron back in. How does this compare to other artists? Whose record did she break?
Speaker 6:Yeah, so there's a few big players here that she's always being compared to, I'd say namingly, like Beyonce. That's who everyone has been talking about. But for a second we have to turn our attention to Beyonce's husband, jay-z. It looks like it's very possible that she will break the tie with Jay-Z for the most number ones from a soloist. Wow, and the only other person or, I guess, group actually to do that is the Beatles, and they had 19 on the Billboard 200.
Speaker 1:So I am ignorant on this point. Is the Beyonce, taylor Swift thing? Is that competition still simmering?
Speaker 6:I wouldn't say that's a competition. I think people have enjoyed pitting them against each other as if there can only be one Um, but I think they both serve the music community in very different ways, uh, in very unique ways that are, like, I think, equally appreciated by their fan bases. And there is, of course, like the Venn diagram moment, of people that appreciate both Um, and so, of course, you have your people that enjoy a bit of drama, but, uh, I think they have very different careers, very different career paths, um, but what they do, I'd say for like women in music, is very similar of just bringing like that feminism, that strong female voice, to the forefront, uh, being able to, you know, have jams that you can sing along to, and then also things that are more introspective and make you really want to think Um. And then, of course, they're both, you know, performers, um, and have really awesome tours. That they're, you know, collecting billions and billions of scenes on um over the course of several years.
Speaker 2:Count me as one of those people who went to both the heiress tour and you went to the last year yeah. Yeah, you know, I mean, like was it like the religious experience that everybody talks about Basically. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Tell me about it.
Speaker 2:So um, I mean there's a lot of people listening that are never going to get tickets, so you're going to be the window. Well, and here I am. Like you know I what today?
Speaker 2:we're recording on a Friday to about two weeks before she returns to the stage in Paris about a fortnight, ding, ding, ding From when she returns to the stage in Paris. Paris is also a Taylor Swift song, but I'm just going with that one slide. But no, you know, I saw her in Chicago at Soldier Field. I had floor tickets, by the grace of God and I, you know. Truly a religious experience. I mean. I don't think I've ever seen as many dudes getting down to like Taylor Swift, with or without their girlfriends, in that audience. What?
Speaker 1:was the ratio.
Speaker 2:I mean definitely, maybe like 70, 30 women.
Speaker 1:Really Okay. That's 30s high.
Speaker 2:I'd say 30s high Um yeah, and definitely, like you know, I like turn around and there's the Brad's and the Chad's um like out in it, out right there with me and with everybody else, I would 100% go.
Speaker 1:I don't have daughters, I have only sons, and they listen to my music. They listen to like Pearl Jam and the National.
Speaker 4:Well, you've got to get them on Taylor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, actually Ryan Adams did a Taylor Swift album cover Like he covered all of 1989. And when I was playing it in the car one time my son Colin's like isn't that a Taylor Swift song? So I'm like how did you know? Kind of caught him. All right, I'm going to reach to the producer booth. Bianca, you were wincing and looking like you wanted to jump in on the Taylor versus Beyonce battle of the artists and whether or not it's still taking place. You think it is.
Speaker 5:Well, I think it's a lot more about the media.
Speaker 1:Oh so, right, right, trying to pit them against each other. Media loves conflict, right? Yeah, we know that.
Speaker 5:For female artists that are successful and I don't think it's ever come from them. Beyonce went to the premiere of Taylor's Heiress Tour movie. Taylor has consistently supported Beyonce in many things and I agree with Cameron that they represent many different things and it's cool to see them innovating in very incredible albums this year Both of them and album artists that think of the album as a whole and I think because of the whole controversy with Kanye back then, when was that?
Speaker 2:by the way? What year was that? 2016. 2016?.
Speaker 5:Nothing else happened that year. No, it was like 2013 or something like that.
Speaker 2:Wait, you mean the original the.
Speaker 5:VMAs.
Speaker 4:During the VMAs? Oh, no, no.
Speaker 2:That was after she would have won for Fearless, which came out in 2008. So probably 2009.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Wow. So we're living through that drama and you would even argue, the manufactured drama from that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I think at the end of the day there's always a lot of criticism and a lot of, I think, with both of these artists. A lot of the time your opinion about their music kind of becomes an opinion of how you think of them as a person.
Speaker 3:Right, and who you are as a person. A reflection, right? Yeah.
Speaker 5:I think, at the end of the day, that's what happens with both of them. So if you criticize their album, you're criticizing them, their fan base, what they represent to people, and so that ends up creating this.
Speaker 1:So much of this, though, is manufactured by PR and publicist folks inside the industry, because conflict sells. It, does it? I mean, if we look at it in, you can look at it in sports, you can look at it in film industry, the sort of competition between box office stars like it's what drives clicks and it's what sells magazines and well, you don't have magazines as much anymore, but you know what I mean. It just sells clicks, right, but this is a perfect segue into the media PR publicity part of our conversation, and I want to start off with the critics. What do you make of some of the professional critics and some of the pushback on the professional critics of this album? I'm going to start with you, rinald.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think that. So something that's incredibly interesting to me is that over the last few days, taylor has posted 12 times I went back and counted on Twitter and Instagram posting positive reviews of the Taylor Swift Post Department, which she didn't really do for Midnight. She didn't really do for any of her re-recording. She hasn't. As long as I've been a fan, I haven't seen her do that. I think Taylor herself is a person who cares about the critics, who cares about awards, who cares about what her peers think of her. Who cares about what her peers think of her. She had her 2019 documentary film, miss Americana, which explored a lot of her political coming out of the closet and her journey through the post-reputation world, and the release of her album Lover. She talked about in that album about how you know some of the negativity around reputation.
Speaker 2:Um like, forced her and how it affected her and also, you know, drove her to. You know she, just I, I think the direct quote is you know, I just need to make a better album, um, and so I, I, she, to me is the sort of person who very clearly cares about these. You know reviews about accol, the opinions of her peers, and so you know I wonder how much of what she has been posting recently reflects maybe some anxiety about. You know, some of these negative reviews and you know you take that and you compare that to the fact that, like I believe it was Paste Magazine that you know posted their review anonymously.
Speaker 1:Was that the one? Yeah, it had. Like it didn't have a byline.
Speaker 2:Yes, and they said, yeah, I saw the writer yeah, um, because you know, not not to put myself up to this, but because swifties have been known to you know this is.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting to me and I noticed it as a storyline because I was very surprised by it. Um, I just never cared about critics. I've never listened to an album because I thought critics liked it. And there's been so many times where I've read a critic reviews Back in my day it was Rolling Stone, whether or not you got four or five stars, and. But oftentimes I'd see, wow, that's an incredible review and I would go and listen to it and I'm like I don't. That doesn't resonate with me at all and it's just so important to remember that music is a preference, right, people? What really works for you is not going to work for everybody else, and the critics be damned.
Speaker 5:I think it should be that it should be about the music and about your preferences. But in a world when a lot of the time, the criticism people feel defensive about an artist because they feel like the criticism is about them as fans rather than the music itself, this gets complicated.
Speaker 1:I think you're right on that point, Bianca. I'd say this is a very unique part of Taylor Swift's profile, which is how invested her fans feel in her success, and they take any criticism of her personally yeah, you can see that with the new york times piece that came out, where it was like has taylor swift finally gave people too much?
Speaker 5:and I think a lot of the fans felt. Or what I've been seeing is people saying you can criticize her music and say that it was unedited and there were too many songs, but you're saying you're speaking for the fans when you say that she's given her fans too much. So I thought that was an interesting dynamic that was going on.
Speaker 4:I feel like I can relate to that on a personal level because I remember when Taylor Swift was first becoming popular our song you Belong With Me, all those songs were coming out. Everyone loved her. I was just young. Everyone was singing to her. And then, maybe when I reached middle school or young high school, it was like a switch flipped and there was so much hate and if you liked her you were like a loser. So I would never tell anyone like, yeah, I loved listening to her latest album. And now that it's now cool again to listen to Taylor Swift and it's cool to go to her airs tour If you went to that like, you are a shining star. Your Instagram is the coolest thing on earth.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 4:So I definitely relate to that on a personal level and that you know hearing people criticize her work while that is valid and that you know hearing people criticize her work.
Speaker 1:While that is valid, I do understand where you're coming from and that when people do that, it is like criticizing your own taste.
Speaker 3:So we're going to take a break and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about the power of publicity and how the Taylor Swift brand is promoted and protected in today's marketplace. Penta is the world's first comprehensive stakeholder solutions firm. We are a one-stop shop for the intelligence and strategy leaders need to assess a company's reputation and make decisions that improve their positioning as executives in the C-suite must account for a growing set of engaged stakeholders, all with distinct, fast-changing demands. Penta provides real-time intelligence and strategy solutions. We work with clients solving complex global challenges across a variety of industries. Our clients span technology, financial services, energy, healthcare and more. To learn more about how Penta can support your company, check out our website at pentagroupco, our Twitter at PentaGRP or find us on LinkedIn at Penta Group.
Speaker 1:Okay. So if we're going to talk about the business and the economics of Taylor Swift, we have to talk about TreePain. Now, for folks out there who don't know who TreePain is, treepain is the uber ultra powerful would that be the right way to describe it PR maven for Taylor Swift. There is a profile of TreePain in Wall Street Journal this week or over the past week and it really does provide a great window into the business of managing the Taylor Swift image and the industry that revolves around her. So I'm going to look, I'm going to open this up for a discussion, but first I have to say, is Tree Payne not the greatest name ever for a PR person?
Speaker 4:I was literally wondering if that was a stage name. It is kind of a stage name, it's so good.
Speaker 1:Well, it is kind of a stage name, it's not her actual, real name, but that's what she goes by now and what she's known for, but really an incredible concentration of power in the Taylor Swift universe. And I don't know any top line thoughts on the profile piece. I mean, first of all, pr folks are never supposed to get profiles and when they do, they can't comment in them, and I think she's pretty wise in not commenting in this one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, notable to me that this whole piece ran without a comment from Payne. I believe the piece said that she hasn't sat for an interview since many years ago for a Nashville publication. I think that was prior to Taylor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know, as aspiring community, as aspiring communicators and strategists ourselves, it's hard not to, you know, look up and see something quite impressive in all the tree pains being able to accomplish. You know. You know, I think the thing that I, I think the insight that I gain the most from watching how she's able to so adeptly manage Taylor Swift's image is, you know, payne emphasizes the importance to me of sharing just enough, but not too much, specifically about Taylor. You know, I think she does thinking about it from the perspective of principle management and the idea that Swift is the principal and that Tree is responsible for managing Taylor and her needs as well as the needs of the brand of Swift Inc. She does well to manage what the brand needs to communicate versus what the principal's interests are and what the wants of Taylor are knowing when to say no to Taylor versus knowing when to say yes.
Speaker 2:Again, I think you saw a lot of that back and forth. I think a lot of people got a lot of insight into the interactions between the two of them for the first time in the Miss Americana documentary, where you see the two of them talking about when or where, whether it's appropriate for Taylor to comment on forthcoming elections and about the 2018 Senate race in Tennessee. And you know, ever since then, people have, I think, more casual fans have started to spot her at award shows and various other things. I think it's an interesting insight into just how much of being a publicist is not just managing the public, but also managing the principal.
Speaker 1:That was the most important lesson I took from the profile is when you think about the power of persuasion that a communicator has working for a principal, working for an organization, the real currency comes in how much trust that the organization has in putting you out front as their spokesperson. Or, for example, if we're working with the CEO, knowing that we speak for the CEO and can relay with confidence the vision, the values of the CEO and the organization. For Tree Payne it's so clear how connected she is to Taylor Swift here and can serve as a voice or a window into the insights and the moods and the various ideas and instincts of Taylor Swift and reporters and this entire media ecosystem that revolves around Taylor Swift, the artist and then the sort of secondary market of everybody who just writes about the record industry or reports on the record, on the music industry, knows that that when they're speaking with Tree Payne that there is that high level of confidence from the principal and that really matters and really makes a difference in whether or not you have an impact.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think you know seeing this Wall Street Journal piece on her is really interesting because, just like Taylor Swift, a lot of her is a mystery and you know she's kept her own personal life very secretive and there isn't a lot of information on her, which is making a lot of people wonder and like, want more, you know, and that's where all this new media frenzy about herself, um, is coming from.
Speaker 1:Yeah and um, I think it's uh. It's also a reflection of her professionalism that she makes sure that she maintains a low profile and that she's not the story right. You never really want to get ahead of the principle. I'll relate this to some of my political history. Bob Dole used to have a saying when any of his aides were quoted by name on the record in newspaper or in any media reports, he'd say what are you running for? You know, why are you, why is your name out there? And I've always taken that as an important lesson in my own, in my own career, which is when I was working as a, you know, top communicator for high value principles, like people running for president, people running for office, was to always begin every statement on the record, which is the statement of the principle. Like Mitt Romney believes X, and here's why you know that, uh, that was my job not to talk, not to ever use the term I think uh, because it's not about me, it's about the principle and the organization.
Speaker 5:I think tree also understands very well Um some key ideas about how to communicate and how to talk to her target audience. One for me that sticks out is the picture's worth a thousand words with Taylor Swift and there's so many examples of this when there's some kind of controversy and then the next day Tree has the exact picture that she needs to prove that people are spiraling. So an example is the Grammy situation where people said she didn't thank Celine Dion. Literally 30 minutes later there was a picture of Taylor with Celine Dion after the award to show that she had in fact talked to her. The situation that happened after the Brazil show where a young fan died from a heat stroke and her family was later invited to meet Taylor. And even in that situation there were so many videos of Taylor visibly upset at the show that people were sharing and they were like look how upset she is, look how she cried at the show. She feels for her fan. She didn't need to say anything. She barely said anything and the blame was almost completely.
Speaker 1:And that's where that's, but that's where the cycle of connectivity with fans really begins. So much of so much of the success in this marketplace, particularly with music, is about behavioral science, right. I mean people have aspirations about what they want from a song or how songs make them feel. So when they have their artist, somebody that they feel really connected to, demonstrating that kind of sympathy with another fan or fans based on a tragedy, like they really do respond to that. I think one of the other lessons here in the communications sort of business world is that TreePain really has an understanding of the market and knowing how look you have to feed a content pipeline all the time. People have a very high appetite for Taylor Swift news but also the personalization of it right, it right, which is give people a window into the artist and how they think and make sure that that connection with your audience is done on a very visceral level versus just a technical level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think Taylor offers Taylor Swift is a brand offers great evidence for the benefits of humanizing your brand. Obviously she is a human and so you know it's a little bit different there than say you know a large corporation. But people, especially today, prize relatability and authenticity, both within the you know audiences and but also from companies and organizations.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly Right, it's not just music, it's not just celebrities, it's brands. The parasociality of being a Swift fan certainly generates a strong and loyal fan base. I like that. What is that parasociality? Yeah, I think, if you take that, it's something that not only are other artists seldom able to replicate. It's something that businesses would obviously have a difficult time trying to replicate. But there's something there about it. It's beyond just the product that you're selling for Taylor and for her fans. It's beyond just, you know, for Swift Inc. It's beyond just the music that you're selling, or the merch, or the concert tickets. It's this ability to feel, um, it's this ability to feel amity with the brand or with with Taylor.
Speaker 1:You know I so I'll relay to you all an anecdote that I had when I was working on campaigns, and it's not a direct antidote, but it's related.
Speaker 1:I had a friend tell me about when he went to a Taylor Swift concert with his daughter and he said you know, it's amazing how and we were talking about it earlier like the religious experience, you know, it's almost like a revival. But he said it was amazing how, when she spoke to the audience that they speak in very technical terms, like the company, the people of the United States, things like that but Obama had this it was always talking directly to the voter that had not yet made up their mind and persuading them about how they're invested in his campaign. Taylor Swift used to say that too. She talked to her fans and every fan out there felt like Taylor Swift was talking directly to her. There's a lot of really good lessons in that for anybody who's a public communicator, in recognizing that your audience wants a connection and they also want to have you speak to them more directly their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations, their fears, those type of things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that, because so I studied psychology in undergrad and a big part of what I studied was cultural psychology and how to frame messaging to best reach your audience you know and best support them. Your audience you know and best support them. And hearing that you speak about that in like a concert setting and how you know she's drawing in her audience and making them feel so connected.
Speaker 1:It's just really interesting to hear you know a friend of mine best summarized it by saying. He said you remember the Beatles. He's like John. John Lennon and Paul McCartney didn't write remember the.
Speaker 3:Beatles. He's like John, john Lennon and Paul.
Speaker 1:McCartney didn't write I want to hold a hand. They wrote I want to hold your hand. And everybody who played that record back then you know, if you were 14 years old, 15 years old, and you were listening to John John Lennon and Paul McCartney sing that song, you're thinking they're talking to me and that's what makes people buy more records. It's what, and but it makes them buy more records. But it's what makes them has a connection with the artist and where it becomes that much more of a, of a, of a of a relationship.
Speaker 5:Yeah, definitely, and you can see people dissecting her lyrics and she shares. Just enough for people to get engaged and I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, they feel like Taylor Swift understands me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and they want to know what these stories are going to say about Taylor Swift as a person in her life. And I wonder, if she didn't have that appeal, the gossip, you know, the scandal if it would have been the same thing. I think about it a lot as a literature junkie, literature nerd. She has a lot of literary references and that's what kind of appealed to me in the beginning when I started listening to folklore. She has the Gatsby references, she has the Rebecca, she has old Austin so many references.
Speaker 5:And she said, specifically these stories are fictional, these are not about me, and yet everybody was already dissecting who the characters were. Is it really fictional? Is it actually a way that she's talking to us about a whole parallel part of her life that we don't know about? Same, with this album she has the like incredible. She had the greek mythology references, the patty sm. She has Peter Pan, everything. And yet we're still. We only want to know what happened between her and Joel Howen, what happened between her and Travis Kelsey. So I wonder if sometimes she shares too much for people to not listen to the other parts of her music, or if that's actually the appeal. Right, it's feeling like you're a part of her story and you've seen her grow up throughout her music, so it's an interesting Well, it's created an entire economy and I have to note that the Is it American University?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:American University is now teaching a course called? And do I have the pronunciation right on this Swiftonomics?
Speaker 2:Swiftonomics Swifta, swifto.
Speaker 1:Swifto. I wonder what actually Swiftonomics and they're actually studying the economic impact of Taylor Swift. Now I have my own notes here, I think, cameron. I did my own little research here and I know you can probably back me up on this, but the Arras tour alone was a $1 billion. Actually, it's still ongoing, right? This was just the first leg of it was $1 billion, making it the highest grossing tour of all time, and I'm looking at one of my studies here. So we had the era tours. Attendees the average for per concert was 54,000. So if you've ever been to one of these NFL stadiums that's packed Like that is packed to the gills at an NFL stadium for one concert, where were you sitting, by the way? Were you all the way down on your concert? Did you have good seats or were you like nosebleeds? Were you, were you like in seat five, 54,000?
Speaker 2:So we were on the floor. Uh, and soldier field is the smallest. Uh, u S a football stadium for the NFL. How many was it? Seven?
Speaker 1:Uh, no way fewer, I want to say it's I, I cause some of these college stadiums fit 100,000. Yeah and so, yeah, you're right. Social field is much older, so it's probably in the 40s, maybe, maybe even less than that.
Speaker 2:It's tiny, second only to our very own local. I think. Now it's called the commander's field, but no, I was on the floor and so I wasn't at the section of the floor where you're, right next to the part of the stage that juts out into the crowd, but just slightly behind that. Yeah, sitting on the floor.
Speaker 1:The average spend. I want to know if you spent this much money. The average spend for an heiress tour attendee is $1,327. Well, this didn't involve me flying to Chicago as well as the floor tickets, which, to be fair, I did buy first, so that's about right, then right, if you flew, you bought tickets, probably something $1,300. And then paying for parking and it was worth.
Speaker 2:And an outfit and everything else Was it worth every penny.
Speaker 6:Of course, the heiress tour earned Taylor Swift $4.1 billion, which is enough to give every American a $20 bill.
Speaker 1:I want my $20 bill so I can buy another Taylor Swift vinyl Keep the cycle going.
Speaker 6:And the average ticket price. It sounds like your ticket was pretty affordable, but the average ticket price was $1,611. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did not spend. I don't remember the exact amount, but it was definitely less than $1,000.
Speaker 1:The National is a bargain. I think I paid $120 for my tickets.
Speaker 2:Compared to that, anything is a bargain.
Speaker 1:The other thing, too, is that this is not concentrated to Chicago, new York, la. We're talking about Cincinnati, st Louis, like you know.
Speaker 4:Indianapolis. I'm actually going in November for her last leg of the US tour.
Speaker 1:In Denver and in Cincinnati. It showed that the heiress tour was expected to contribute $140 million to Colorado's GDP and bring in $92 million in local spending in Cincinnati. So we're talking about hotels, people getting cabs and Ubers, people buying merchandise on the street. As we said earlier, there's an entire secondary economy around it.
Speaker 6:Restaurants are packed, coffee shops are packed, right, it's just and to add to that, when Taylor brings her tour to the city it adds around three thousand three hundred relationship. You know, a full NFL season and then a tour forever right.
Speaker 1:You never get to see your loved ones, but I wonder what happens when it goes away? Do we actually have like a baseline now we can study about what the economic drop-off might look?
Speaker 2:like I think somewhere in Washington, jerome Powell is on his knees begging Taylor to stop stimulating the economy. No, I mean you know it'll be a big question. I mean you know there's rumors floating around that she's going to push it further into 2025. But you know, right now she's set to conclude in Vancouver in December, and so you know, who knows, maybe we'll be talking about the heiress tour again in 30 years.
Speaker 1:As long as my nieces get to go. They're going to Munich, I think, to see, uh, their concert overseas.
Speaker 4:Wow, I wonder what their? I think that was.
Speaker 2:I think Europe needs it more than yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, my, my and I could be wrong, but I know they're going to Europe and they're going to see Taylor Swift. My sister was like they were going over there anyway, so like that's probably their best chance to score tickets. And somehow they scored tickets. So you know, well, that's it for this episode of Penta Pop. I can't thank you enough. This was a great discussion. Did you guys have fun? Are we going to do this again?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I really hope so. I hope so Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm even thinking maybe we bring Brian back Brian DeAngelis, who's a partner here at Penta, and we start. Maybe we do a Pearl Jam. Is anybody up for Pearl Jam? No, you all don't look like fans, all right, so it's just going to be me, just two suburban dads sitting in a room talking about Pearl Jam. Okay, well, that's how it's going to be. So, thanks to our P, remember, please like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast, and follow us on Twitter at Penta Group. That's Penta Group P-E-N-T-A-G-R-P, and on LinkedIn at Penta Group. I'm Kevin Madden. Thanks for listening to this Penta Podcast. We're already looking forward to the next one. See you then.
Speaker 5:Thanks Kevin. Thanks Thanks Kevin, thanks Kevin.