Podcast Transcript:
Everyone is talking about it and I knew I had to as well. In this episode, we are going to dive into the influence that Taylor Swift has had on Travis Kelsey, the NFL viewership fandom, and what the Swifties are doing for the NFL’s bottom line. This is marketing 101 at its best and I cannot wait to share this with you.
Hey, there, I’m Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing Podcast. I’m a mama, a wife, an entrepreneur and a three time best selling co-author in each episode. You’ll get real world, practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you’re ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you’re in the right place.
Hey, there. Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Momentum Marketing Podcast. As always, I am your host, Jillian Kendrick and I’m very excited to be here with you today. Everybody has been talking about it. Everybody’s been talking about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. And even though it’s fun to talk about celebrities, even though it’s interesting to make comments about someone’s dating life which by the way is nobody else’s business but hers. The thing I am taking away from this more than anything is the power of influence. It’s the power of how you treat people. It’s the power of how, when you nurture your fandom, when you build relationships with people, when you have a secret code and a secret language that only they speak or only you speak with them, you can move mountains and do amazing things even beyond the stunning stuff that we’re about to talk about and some of the stuff that I’m gonna drop in just a minute about what’s been happening with Taylor, with Travis Kelsey in the NFL, it’s so fascinating to watch this play out from a marketing perspective. People are now even saying that she should run for president because she’s so nice and has so much influence. I don’t disagree. It’s not a bad idea. Does she wanna do that? Who knows? But this is what happens when you create raving fans. This is what happens when you actually have influence. Not when you are an influencer, but when you truly have influence, when you have fans that will follow you that feel connected to you that feel like they’re a part of your family. This is the stuff that happens and she has cultivated this for years and years and years.
Some of the big things that I noticed about Taylor Swift and before we even get into like all the dating and all the stuff in the NFL and everything else. Some of the big things that I noticed about Taylor Swift in terms of creating that fandom. Number one, she tends to hide little, like, subliminal messages in her songs. Whether it’s a subliminal message about a relationship or a specific person or a time in her life or even hinting towards other things or other albums.
She tends to do that quite a bit from what I’ve heard and seen. Very similar to, like, JK Rowling who wrote all the Harry Potter books would put these subliminal messages or tiny little hints or would say something very kind of passively. And when you’re reading it, you have to, like, pick up on it or else you completely miss it. She has a very similar writing style to the way that Taylor Swift writes music and lyrics and then those bread crumbs become the thing that the fans follow. It becomes this trail of analyzing what she’s trying to say or what’s the meaning behind this or where is this going from here or who is she talking about?
And it’s almost like gamifying your work. It really is. It’s like she’s taken this thing that people are interested in and she’s turned it into a game of like, can you unravel the clues hidden inside of these lyrics or hidden inside of the book or can you see a message or a thing or something that she did or showed inside of a music video and fans love this stuff. They love that she does it, they love that she writes that way. They love that. They get to kind of watch her music videos for those Easter eggs. And it’s fascinating to them because they’ve turned it into a game. She really has genuinely gamified her work. I love it. I’m thoroughly impressed. So she has the subliminal sort of messaging or the breadcrumb trail that she uses. And I’m not going to speculate and say whether it’s like a strategy or a marketing thing or does she do it consciously or subconsciously? I don’t know either way. I think it’s brilliant. The next thing I noticed about Taylor Swift in terms of her marketing that we can look at is that her fandom has named themselves. They’ve given themselves the title of Swifties. You’ve probably heard other people. For example, Adele’s fan base refer to themselves as Daydreamers, named after a song on her album 19. Aerosmith’s nickname for their fan base is Blue Army. I’m not really sure what that is or where that comes from, but that’s interesting. There’s so many in this list, I’m not even going to try and name all of them.
I just pulled it up on Wikipedia searching for fandom list names and there’s so many beyond just musicians. For the TV show Game of Thrones, the fan base nickname is Thrones, Newcastle United football club is the Tune Army. There’s so many of these, but the point is Taylor Swift’s fan base has a self appointed nickname of the Swifties. They have created their own community with which to refer to themselves and a way of self identity defying as if it was a cultural reference. So you can say that somebody is French, or Canadian, or they’re a Kiwi from New Zealand, or they’re an Aussie from Australia. People who like Taylor Swift and follow her to the ends of the earth are called Swifties.
And this is fascinating because it goes back to tribalism. A lot of marketing is around tribalism. It’s about our fundamental need as human beings to have belonging. Renee Brown’s amazing book, Braving the Wilderness talks all about belonging and self and going through life. Braving that wilderness, figuring out who you are. There’s an amazing book on community belonging, sense of self and tribalism. But it really comes back to that. It comes back to our fundamental need as human beings to belong somewhere, to feel accepted, to feel love, to feel a sense of knowing and understanding another person and to do that without an enormous time commitment to get to know that person.
I’ll give you an example, my mom, dad, sister and I back think this was like, maybe my junior year, the summer of like my junior going into senior year of high school. And the four of us because my older brother and sister had already, like, gone to college, had babies moved out. So it was just the four of us at the time and we went to Europe. Had a lot of fun. We’re sitting in Munich Germany at the original Hofbrauhaus Beer Garden and we’re eating food, drinking beer. Our waitress was fine. I suppose she wasn’t particularly objectionable or mean or rude, but she wasn’t warm. She couldn’t have cared less that we existed. It was one of those, you know. Hi, I’m and so, and thanks to a series of unfortunate events, I’ll be your waitress this evening. It was one of those kind of, you’re here to eat. I have to do a job. Ok, let’s get this over with kind of vibes from her. She never really made eye contact with us. She couldn’t really have cared less that we were there that we existed. So it’s fine. We’re going through the meal and we’re talking, like, a little bit in English mostly in German to her when we want something or when we’re ordering food. And then I don’t remember what the circumstances were, but we switched to Serbian. I mean, I’m not fluent by any means, but my family, like my grandfather was born in Montenegro. And so our family speaks a little bit of Serbian and for whatever reason, in the middle of that conversation, my dad and I switched to talking Serbian, which is usually a cue of you know, I need to tell you something that I don’t want anybody else to hear. So I’m gonna talk to you in another language that they kind of an obscure language that like, not a whole lot of other people know. So we started talking in Serbian and sure enough this woman who was our waitress, it was like this night and day Jekyll and Hyde shift in her and you could physically see it because she completely lit up and was like, Kako ste? how are you? Kako Zovi? how are you called? What’s your name? What can I do for you? Can I get you anything Očeš Pivo? Do you want more beer? Just super nice and super sweet and loving and warm and could not have been more different from the woman who was our waitress, the version of her that was a very cold and just transactional I think would be a good way to describe her. But there was such a huge, tremendous shift in her when she heard us speaking Serbian because that’s where she’s from. And so what I was able to kind of glean from that moment, and that moment like really has stuck with me over the years, especially thinking about human nature and psychology and everything that is marketing. The reason that she lit up, the reason that she was so warm to us was because we identified through that language that we were just like her. That we had deep, deep, deep similarities and whether or not you know anything about Serbian Montenegrin or Eastern Orthodox culture, but family, the church, the religion, the language, the culture, the drinking, the food, the dancing, like everything is so heavily intertwined within that culture, very similar to other cultures in the world. It’s so heavily intertwined that you really can’t separate one of those pieces without, kind of, piece mealing the entire culture apart. They’re just so connected and representative of who those people are from that area of the world. Again, very, very similarly to any other culture in the world. It’s about the food, the music, usually some dancing, the people, probably some alcohol thrown in there, maybe a little bit of religion, the language for sure, family or a familial connection, a connection to the earth or like a visceral connection to a location. And that’s what lit her up. What lit her up in that moment was that she knew she didn’t have to work hard to explain who she was. And that we already had a very thorough understanding of who she was and what she was about because we shared that language because we shared that culture. It’s the sense of identity, and I see you in a way that no one else in this room will see you because I understand you at such a deep visceral level because I speak your language. I’m from where you’re from or rather my family is from where you’re from. And that connection just completely lit this woman up and she was just so excited and happy and like, what can I do for you? And she’s giving us hugs and kisses. It was just a night and day.
And so that’s a very long story to explain that, like, that’s what I see in the Swifties. That’s what it means to belong. That’s what it means to create that tribe and have that sense of tribalism is like minded people identifying as a singular group and saying this is what we enjoy or this is who we are or this is what we’re about. And the very definition of the name that we’re called, whether it’s a Swifty or something else tells the world who we are and invites in others like us. That’s what tribalism is. That’s what it means to connect and a community in your life, in your brand and your business. That’s what you’re aiming for.
Another thing that Taylor Swift does that’s really amazing is she in the swifties have the friendship bracelets. So the friendship bracelets have made a way for her fan base to connect with her and feel connected with her through something that they don’t necessarily have to pay money for. Now, you could argue like, yeah, you could go on Pandora Radio or Spotify or you could turn on the radio and you could listen to her music without having to buy it. Sure. I get that. But for those people that couldn’t get tickets to the Era tour or for the people who can’t afford a t-shirt, they can make their own friendship bracelet and still be connected with her. Anybody can create a friendship bracelet that doesn’t have to be branded to Taylor Swift necessarily. And they can wear it and feel like they’re a Swifty. They can feel that sense of community in connection with her and with other Swifties around the world because of this friendship bracelet. Like that is an incredible, incredible, brilliant marketing tactic that she is using. And again, I’m not saying that any of this is superficial. I’m not saying that it’s intentional or unintentional. I’m just pointing out my observations.
So let’s get down to the actual bottom line of what she’s doing for the NFL right now. Viewership of the NFL football games. I think they’ve done three or so that she’s been to has gone up significantly. We’re talking like 8 to 10% or more viewers than the exact same football game the previous year, which is really amazing. Even to the point where during the game where it was the Kansas City Chiefs versus the New York Jets, nearly 27 million people were already watching that game. And then once the Instagram and X or Twitter buzz started to get around that she was at the game and more people wanted to see it. The viewership jumped up to 29.2 million viewers in the second quarter of the game because more people wanted to like, turn it on and watch her. Right. And that was actually the biggest demographic gain for an NFL game than they’ve seen in a really, really long time, possibly ever. And just for comparison, the 2022 World Series, that audience was 12.8 million viewers for the final game of the series. And there were well over double that many viewers for the Kansas City Chiefs and Jets game that she was at.
On top of that sales of Travis Kelsey’s jersey have gone up 400% since September 24th. He was already one of the top selling jerseys in the NFL and his has just completely exploded. According to ESPN, the website Vivid Seats has seen a 173% increase in traffic since the Chiefs Jets game that Taylor Swift went to Travis and Jason Kelsey’s podcast became the number one podcast on I think Apple and Spotify after that game. And Travis Kelsey’s followers, I think it was on Instagram went up by like several 100,000, I think like two or 300,000 people overnight. Like within 24 hours started following him.
The NFL has even come out and said to Travis and Jason Kelsey’s mom, that their family and what’s going on, everything that they’re doing with the two brothers being in the NFL, the mom being super popular with last year’s Super Bowl because her sons were on opposing teams and the Taylor Swift thing and the podcast and the extra broadcast and everything that they’re doing, the NFL has come out and said that that family has single handedly increased the NF L’s revenue almost immeasurably just in the past year to the point that they’ve admitted they couldn’t pay for the amount of pr that the Kelsey family has brought to the NFL. Some fans and people on Instagram are even making Chiefs Jerseys of cookies and writing good luck Taylor’s boyfriend on the, on the back of the jersey in frosting. Like this has gone beyond the NFL. It’s gone beyond her career, it’s gone beyond sporting events. This is such a master class playing out in real time of what it means to create community, to create fandom and to take care of your fans to do the things that Taylor Swift does show up at random to play one song or take a picture at somebody’s wedding or I think it was really early on in her career. She invited a bunch of Swifties over to her house and baked them cookies to watch the release of one of her music videos. I think she does a lot to take care of her fans. I know that her mom and dad are out doing crowd work, meeting with people and taking pictures and saying hello and collecting friendship bracelets and handing things out and making sure that they are 2nd and 3rd and 4th arms for her to connect with her fans.
I would love to hear your take on all of this. What do you think about the Swifties? What do you think about the Swifties? What do you think about the Taylor Swift effect that she’s having on the NFL? How much of this have you seen played out? What does it mean to you to build community in your business? How do you think that you can take the things that we’ve talked about today and apply them to your own business or your own community? What does that look like for you? I would love to hear from you. Shoot me an email: Hello@jilliankendrick.com and I’ll see you on the next episode.
Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of the Momentum Marketing Podcast. If listening to this has brought you value, improved your life or given you insight on how you can build your own momentum, then please share this with a friend. And if you’re ready to grow your business on autopilot, then I want to help you get there easier and faster with a copy of my Entrepreneur Survival Kit. Just leave a review of this podcast wherever you’re listening right now. Hopefully it’s a five star review and you love it. Then screenshot the review and email the screenshot to Hello@jilliankendrick.com. Once we confirm the review, we’ll send you a copy of the survival kit totally free. Thank you so much for joining me and I’ll see you on the next episode. All content is written and recorded by Jillian Kendrick. Copyright 2023. All rights reserved.
The Momentum Marketing Podcast
By Jillian Kendrick
Episode: # 36
Topic: Taylor Swift: The power of influence
Contact: hello@jilliankendrick.com
Follow IG: instagram.com/automatedmama
