AT&T signed a major, exclusive multi-year, multifaceted deal featuring performances and content with 10-time GRAMMY® award-winning singer, songwriter, musician, and producer Taylor Swift. The partnership includes ongoing content releases for the Taylor Swift NOW channel, performances, and integrations through merchandise, fan events, and social content distribution.
Taylor Swift NOW (TSN) is a video catalog on DIRECTV, DIRECTV NOW, and U-verse and is the ultimate video destination for every Taylor Swift fan. The Video On Demand content is organized in themed chapters, and showcases videos, concert performances, behind-the-scenes footage, and more from the Taylor Swift archives.
Our specific business objectives for the partnership include:
In Nov. 2016 it was announced that Taylor Swift would headline the DIRECTV NOW Super Saturday Night in Feb. 2017 and the TSN channel launched the following month. Our specific marketing objective for the Super Saturday Night campaign was to entice Taylor's fans and general audiences by bringing them closer to one of the world's biggest artists and provide exclusive access and coverage of the event. The performance was filmed and edited for debut on TSN in March 2017.
Super Saturday Night (SSN) was the first major event for TSN and our goals were to gain mass awareness for the partnership and demonstrate the incredible value of AT&T's products and experiences. This was achieved by providing world-class IRL events for Taylor's fans and AT&T customers and then leveraging social to 1) broadcast that event story and 2) create memorable moments for communities online with the exclusive content releases that followed. The road to SSN included AT&T in-store events held across Texas to reward fans with tickets to the show. We utilized geo-targeted social posts to drive attendance to these events and provided social coverage of excited fans to ramp up excitement for Taylor's performance. The weekend of SSN included the ultimate invite-only fan pre-party prior to the concert. It was attended by 1,000+ fans and was a Swiftie wonderland complete with makeup/glam stations, donuts walls, a custom T-shirt design station, a flower wall photo op, gourmet food and drinks, and a special message from Taylor herself shown prior to the concert. We provided live content capture of the party and turned around high quality photo and video content in real-time, which included a Facebook 360 video experience to bring fans at home into the space. The real-time content continued with social coverage of the star-studded red carpet and concert. Taylor was back in the spotlight and we gave them a virtual front-row seat to all the entertainment. In the weeks following, the TSN channel debuted a 3-part series with exclusive footage of Taylor's performance. For fans IRL, AT&T recreated the excitement of the SSN pre-party atmosphere with a follow-up event at The GRAMMY Museum Mississippi that debuted an early look at the series and included many of the party elements from the original. Through social, we engaged the Swiftie community with content pieces that showed them how to recreate elements of the SSN pre-party at home as they hosted their own watch parties to tune-in and view the concert. We utilized social listening to find what fans loved most from SSN and created content specifically based on this. We created setlist posters for the series and promoted the release with social microvideos to tease TSN channel content, all focused on highlighting favorite songs and imagery from the event. Fans also gravitated towards the punny food items that were served and then shared in photos on social. We created recipe how-to videos so fans could recreate "Shake It Off Milkshakes," "Loving Him Was Red Velvet Cupcakes," and "I Knew You Were Truffle Fries" -- all based off of Taylor's biggest hits. We concluded the SSN excitement with a splash by releasing a SSN Special Cut in the final week of promotion. |
Super Saturday Night:
Fans were blown away by Taylor's concert and were quick to thank AT&T and DIRECTV NOW for their experience.
