IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK: It’s Taylor Swift’s world and we are just living in it

Last Friday Taylor Swift released her much anticipated re-release of RED, accompanied by a short film for ‘All Too Well’ as well as a new video clip for ‘I Bet You Think About Me’

Swift has been on a mini promotional tour with two interviews on late night shows and an SNL performance of her ten-minute version of ‘All Too Well’.

Taylor Swift decided to re-release her old music after she was not given an opportunity to purchase her own masters and they were sold to record manager, Scooter Braun. In response, Swift publicly expressed her disappointment at Braun and her former record label, Big Machine Records. Her new recordings are intended to devalue the original recordings. Essentially, they are functioning as a way for Swift to finally take ownership of her own art.

A large focus in this album has always been her short-lived relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal, who Taylor was rumoured to have written most of the album about. In the wake of Red (Taylor’s version) Gyllenhaal has become under a lot of criticism for his treatment over her and their large age gap, even though the relationship ended 10 years ago. Whilst this media attention and criticism from fans isn’t likely to significantly harm Gyllenhaal’s reputation, it can’t be fun!

However, these comments do take away from the extraordinary achievement of Taylor Swift. Swift has taken a decade old album and generated incredible media attention and praise. On the day the album was released, Swift managed to break Spotify’s record for the most streamed album in a day by a female artist.

Swift held a premier for her ‘All Too Well’ short film and invited a small group of fans to the exclusive event. This is a regular PR stunt that Swift is known to do which successfully generated increased attention for the premier of the film on social media, as if it needed any. The film currently has over 34 million views on YouTube.

With years of public relations experience behind our team, we applaud Swift’s PR moves. Her approach has employed a combination of strategies – using traditional media like talk shows to reach a wide audience, creating promotional events to generate additional media attention, and using social media to interact with fans.

By Anouk Daddo – PR and Influencer Assistant at InsideOut PR and #AsSeenOn.