Snake Bite
After flying relatively under the radar for a brief period, Taylor Swift is has made a comeback, and it is pretty major. I am not a Taylor Swift fan, in fact for the most part I dislike her (#TeamKanye), however her record-breaking release is impossible to ignore and definitely worth talking about.
First, let’s start with a brief recap to see how we have gotten to this Taylor. We all remember the fateful event that took place in 2009: the VMA’s. As Taylor Swift began her acceptance speech for “Best Female Video”, Kanye West took to the stage to express his feelings on who deserved the award.
“Imma let you finish…but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time”- Kanye West
Fast-forward 7 years to the release of Kanye’s album, The Life of Pablo. In one of the songs titled “Famous”, Kanye makes reference to Taylor Swift in somewhat lewd way. Taylor then took to the media claiming that Kanye never got Taylor’s approval to use these lyrics. A few months down the line Kim Kardashian West releases a series of video recordings of the conversation between Taylor and Kanye on her Snapchat. The videos clearly show Kanye getting Taylor’s approval, exposing her in her lies, marking the death of Taylor, a.k.a The Snake, Swift… or so we thought.
After this controversy, Taylor stayed out of the spotlight for the most part until last month. In August, she began her comeback with a few cryptic Instagram videos of slithering snakes to tease her new release. All of her previous instagram posts were deleted. A few days later her single and music video dropped. The single reached 8 million Spotify streams in its first day, setting a global record. Similar numbers were breaking YouTube’s records as the video was being watched 30,000 times every minute, and 43 million times in 24 hours.
The crucial part of this release, from a PR perspective is the complete rebranding of Taylor Swift. Her Instagram and music video have mirroring concepts: wiping away the Taylor of the past. The video features a new and improved Taylor Swift killing of her previous music video personas.
Her message is clear, she is back and brand new, nobody will be getting in her way. Another admirable tactic was embracing the snake. Taylor took this conversation into her control and used the snake as a symbol of power and overall bad-assness.
Check the video out here!