Taylor Swift's 'Midnights' Marketing

It's no secret that Taylor Swift albums typically arrive alongside intricate release campaigns. The US superstar has made a habit out of sharing cryptic messages, interactive experiences and unique content with her fans during her album rollouts. The release of her latest album 'Midnights' has been no exception.

With the help of another considered campaign, the 'Midnights' release has seen Taylor breaking records swiftly. 'Midnights' now holds Spotify's record for most-streamed album in a day. It’s also the fastest selling album of 2022 so far and the album is topping charts worldwide. This week, we're looking at the campaign that helped it reach this point.

Before Midnight

The 'Midnights' album release was first announced during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at this year's MTV VMAs in August, which sent her global army of fans into an flurry, particularly online.

On TikTok, Swift began building momentum towards the album's release with 13 posts - one for each of the album's tracks. In her TikToks, she played a game of track-by-track Bingo, using a Bingo set up to gradually reveal track titles and details.

Swift also made good use of her Instagram ahead of the release, sharing announcements like this post, which revealed Lana Del Rey's contribution to the album, and this post, which promoted Prime Video's 'Midnights' teaser trailer.

Teaming up with Spotify, Swift also shared lyrical sneak peaks via billboards across the globe, giving the public an extra taste of what was to come.

Ahead of the release, we covered Swift's multi-use physical releases for 'Midnights'. Four different editions of the physical release have been made available to purchase. Each comes with their own artwork, and super fans who purchase all four can arrange them to form a clock, earning themselves a unique piece of merch, while significantly boosting ‘Midnights’ sale numbers.

After two months of pre-release promotion, 'Midnights' arrived at midnight on 21 October, and Swift's fans had quite a bit of information on what they should expect.

After Midnight

As Swift shared some details about the upcoming release, she teased one 'chaotic' surprise was yet to come. That surprise was a special edition of the album, titled 'Midnights (3AM Edition)', which includes seven bonus tracks. Sticking to the theme, Swift released 'Midnights (3AM Edition)' just three hours after the standard album.

'Midnights' is currently being promoted across social media platforms with a range of campaigns. On Snapchat, Swift has delivered 'Midnights' themed lenses, as part of a partnership with the platform and BLNK. Two Landmarker lenses allow fans to transform the clock faces of Big Ben and the Grand Central Station into the 'Midnights' album cover clock. The clock face transforms into a record player and the lens comes complete with music from the album. A third lens allows fans to scan the back of their physical copies of the album to unlock a 'Midnights' clock that they can use in their snaps.

Meta platforms Instagram and Facebook have also made 'Midnights' themed chats available to users, to help celebrate the release within their direct messaging functions.

It's no surprise that Taylor Swift's 'Midnights' is seeing such great success so far, as she delivers another intricate campaign to an invested, loyal fanbase.

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