As Heinz releases its limited edition ‘Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch’ sauce, GQ reports that Travis Kelce’s football jersey sales hit a 400% revenue increase, and Vote.org hits 13,000 users every 30 minutes, the long-held belief that the world revolves around the sun begins to fade: the centre of the universe is, and always has been, Taylor Swift.
Yet even Taylor must admit that her prowess could not be possible without the secret ingredient of social media, home to the digitally native Generation Z. As they come of age and emerge to benefit from history’s greatest-ever transfer of wealth, brands’ best bet would be to tap into the power of their passions: social media, social causes, and influencer culture. Swift has successfully harnessed this holy trinity, sweeping her way across the NFL, American Politics, and, indeed, Heinz Sauce.
The National Football League (Taylor’s Version)
While the Chiefs have stormed through their past four games, leaving dust in their wake as they fought off the Jets, the Vikings, the Broncos, and the Chargers, the real winner was the NFL itself, and Fox to boot. When the team defeated the Chicago Bears, X (formerly Twitter) was flooded with images of Taylor Swift donning a PR-perfect Chiefs red lip and jacket combo, watching the game from afar. Buzz around her romance with Travis Kelce reached a sizzling fever pitch.
Thanks to the word spreading on X, Fox revealed that Swift’s presence drummed up 24.3 million viewers, making it the company’s most-viewed NFL broadcast of the week. Kelce’s podcast hit #1 on Apple, and his Instagram shot to 4.5 million followers; four times the number before being linked with Swift. Variety reported that female viewers aged 18-49 jumped by 63%, and TikTok saw a surge of Swifties sharing cheat sheets on American Football, keen to immerse themselves in the sphere of their icon’s new dating world.
The NFL and NBC expertly picked up on the social fervour. When Swift attended the Chief’s next game against the Jets, the camera cut to her luxury suite 17 times, and NBC revealed its average of 27 million viewers made it the most-watched Sunday show since the February Super Bowl.
The NFL’s Instagram account changed to “chiefs are 2-0 as swifties” soon after the team won their second match with Taylor in tow. The league’s bio on X also changed to “NFL (Taylor’s version)”, before changing to reference her lyrics “we had the best day with you today”.
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By GlobalDataSeemingly Ranch: A Swift special
The power of social media struck again as the heady world of condiments entered the fray. While watching the game in the Kelce family suite, Taylor, likely feeling the mortal pangs of hunger, tucked into a snack. A photo was snapped and posted, and the delicacy she favoured was described by @tswifterastour as: “a piece of chicken with ketchup and seemingly ranch!”.
X sprang into action. As “seemingly ranch” memes appeared tenfold, even The Empire State Building was blessed with brief anthropomorphism, posting a photo of itself alight in red and white alongside the now-historic phrase, “ketchup and seemingly ranch”. Heinz announced it would release one hundred limited edition bottles of a ‘Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch’ sauce while Walmart posted a picture of their shelves, stocked full of ranch, alongside the caption: “Seemingly ranch? Yup, we got it!”.
Impact on votes
The football frenzy has not been the only instance of Swift leaving her mark via social media. As National Voting Day struck on 19 September, her 232 million Instagram followers were urged to sign up to vote. “I’ve heard you raise your voices”, she pandered on her story, “and I know how powerful they are.”
Her omniscience struck as Vote.org’s communication director confirmed a 1,126% jump in website participation the hour after the post. The site suddenly averaged 13,000 visits every 30 minutes. Without hinting too much towards Swift’s otherworldly power, this figure strikes a chord with her infamous lucky number: 13.
Tapping into Gen Z’s Interests
Brands have a lesson to learn from the Swiftie influence if they want to pin down the upcoming financial power that is Gen Z. With the digitally native generation set to inherit an estimated $8.6tn, their interest in influencers, celebrity, social media, and social activism cannot be underestimated. Such is proven by Swift causing the sudden popularity of the NFL, a rise in voting registration in America, and a meme opportunity primed to be harnessed by brands such as Heinz and Walmart.
The very power of her influence on various economies spawned the birth of a new word, ‘Swiftonomics’, as well as a three-day academic conference, the ‘Swiftposium’. With Gen Z coming swiftly of age, companies who want to win the generation over cannot ignore their penchant for the digital world and must tap into online trends from the offset.
