It ain’t cheap being a Taylor Swift fan. But for hardcore Swifties, it’s more than worth it:
$253.56: Average price last year for a direct sale ticket for one of Swift’s Era Tour shows, if you were lucky or fast enough to get one.
$3,801: Average price for a resale ticket for one of Swift’s Era Tour shows last year.
$19.89: Suggested price simply to rent Swift’s Eras Tour Movie on demand.
Swift is a talented writer and entertainer, and she puts on an amazing show. But those aren’t really the ultimate reasons why fans are willing to pay so much.
Instead, it’s about the deep emotional connection she’s forged with her fans. It’s about her music, of course, but to paraphrase the poet Maya Angelou, it’s even more about the way she makes them feel.
And when people are able to forge that kind of emotional connection intentionally we have a name for the skill: emotional intelligence. It’s especially impressive in business, when a person or an entity can inspire emotional reactions in thousands or even millions of people.
This week, we’ve had a new chance to watch it in real time, after Swift (or else her team, I suppose, but I’m going to assume there’s no way this happens without her approval) rolled out the very smart release plans for four different versions of her new “The Tortured Poets Department” album, each with a different bonus track, and a wide range of price points.
Let’s go through the costs:
$34.99: Cost of each of the four versions of the album, including bonus track, on vinyl.
$19.99: Cost of each edition on cassette tape, including bonus track.
$12.99: Cost of each edition on CD, including bonus track.
$11.99: Cost of the standard edition of Tortured Poets Department via digital download, but without any bonus tracks.
Net result: Fans can get the new album for just under $12, but true superfan Swifties can spend as much as $139.96 to get all of the new music Swift will drop on April 19.
“Taylor knows there are people who have a high willingness to pay and will buy all four editions,” Kathryn Bender, an economics professor at the University of Delaware told USA Today. “She also makes it so someone with a lower willingness to pay can just buy the one album.”
And, many of the fans quoted in the same article illustrated a similar theme (basically, they don’t love potentially playing well over $100 to get all of Swift’s new music in a particular format), their emotional attachment is great enough that they’ll at least consider it.
As one tweeted:
“I love Taylor Swift with my whole heart but that marketing of having 1 exclusive for separate variants is so greedy and unnecessary! Taycapitalism needs to stop I will be buying 1 album and pirate the rest. Taylor is a billionaire anyways[.]”
Look, as I’ve written before, I came to Taylor Swift’s music because my daughter is a fan. And, since I still control the purse strings, so to speak, I suspect she’s going to get the $12 digital download at some point, but we’re not spending $50 or $100 or more.
But that’s OK, and I’m happy to walk away with the clear lesson here.
As you’ll read over and over in my free ebook, 9 Smart Habits of People With Very High Emotional Intelligence, the entire point of honing emotional intelligence is to learn to leverage emotions in order to make it more likely you’ll achieve your goals.
Swift just taught yet another masterclass. And an entertaining one, at that.
