Taylor Swift is big news in 2023. Her Eras tour – her sixth headlining concert tour – is drawing the attention of millions of mostly millennial-aged fans. The mad frenzy to get tickets and the huge surcharges for tickets on the secondary market are proof of Swift’s reach.
According to CSUF Marketing Professor Steven Chen, the Eras tour is unique because Swift is only in her early 30s, yet she is featuring all of the music made during her 15-year career thus far, a novel approach unseen in the recent past.
“Back in the 1980s and 1990s, pop stars would never go on a nostalgia tour when they were at Swift’s age and stage,” says Chen. “The greatest hits list for the Eagles or the Rolling Stones was when they were late in the game and were highlighting what they’ve done in the past. No one still at their peak would do that.”
For Chen, who studies marketing with an emphasis on the entertainment and pop culture fields, Swift at present represents the maturity phase of the product lifecycle – the four-phase cycle involving introduction, growth, maturity and decline that is typically used to assess products.
“Maturity is defined when product sales are at a peak and customers for the product are the most diversified that they will ever be,” explains Chen. “Taylor’s customers are from all over the planet. Her sales performance – in terms of album sales and concert ticket sales – is at peak. And at the maturity stage, marketers recommend creating different versions of each product, which is what Swift is doing now, with different versions of her songs out right now on YouTube.”
Using the Product Lifecycle to Interpret 15 Years of Taylor Swift
Since 16-year-old Swift scored her first Top 40 hit in 2006, everything she and her marketing team have done has followed the product lifecycle to a tee, whether intentionally or by happenstance, observes Chen.
“When she first came out – her introduction stage – teenage girls who loved country music gravitated to Taylor and loved her songs. But country only appeals to a certain segment. So, in order to mainstream – a sign of the growth phase – Taylor adopted a pop sound and more mainstream look,” notes Chen.
After Swift’s 2010 “Speak Now” album, Chen calls Swift’s style country-esque or folk-esque – containing some country imagery but more appropriately considered pop music.
What is next for Swift’s musical career? Chen says to watch for attempts to extend her maturity phase for a period – possibly multiple decades.
“The marketing argument would be that it’s hard to restart the lifecycle. But artists such as Billy Joel have extended the maturity phase for a long time. Taylor Swift’s maturity might last 10, 15 or maybe 20 or more years,” says Chen.
“Just to make another album after the Eras tour seems a bit anticlimactic. This tour is the final chapter in volume one for the generational star of our time. I’m interested to see what she will do in volume two and if she will succeed in bringing Generation Z on board.”
For More on Steven Chen
From interpreting the global rise of K–pop to assessing gender depictions in Disney films, Associate Professor of Marketing Steven Chen is focused on producing research on the intersection of marketing and entertainment, product design and design management. He exemplifies the commitment to world-class research and teaching that defines the College of Business and Economics.
