Taylor Swift Alum Red Summary

In NPRs interview about Taylor Swift and her new alum Red, fan Lindsey Feinstein gives the details of why she believes her album was such a success. Lindsey is a 17 year old fan who really knows nothing about Taylors true strategy but even from an outside perspective is able to nearly nail it in her observations. Lindsey points out that Taylor already has a ridiculous amount of brand loyalty, which enables her albums to be sold at full price right in the beginning, which is a strong example of her market power and ability to read her customers. Taylor does not need fans to take a trial of her music to know that they want to support her. Because of this critical advantage, Taylor is able to avoid price skimming and instead participates in perfect

Her fans also exemplify inelastic demand by the fact that she is able to sell 1.2 million copies in her first week priced near fourteen dollars. Even the fact that the customers know the price is not going to decrease, they remain purchasing it regardless. Her partnership with Papa Johns is a brilliant strategy that widens her market and draws in customers that may have previously been a little lower on the demand curve. This deal pushes out her supply and demand line and allows her to charge the same price while still receiving the same payment. Taylor has accomplished reaching her maximum revenue through these partnerships, including with walmart, Walgreens and ITunes, and by avoiding spotify. While spotify is a great way to advertise, she would get way less income due to the charges and wouldn’t be as exclusive in the market place. Taylors new album is off limits to strategies such as quantity discounts and versioning. An example of versioning in this situation would be if Taylor sold singles of this album before the album release or if she sold half versions of the songs at half price. Since the album is the only good that Taylor is truly concerned with, its easy for her to say no to any sort of two-part tariff