Taylor, Tacos and Trending Topics
I’ve always been interested in what people are talking about. My brain loves patterns and when I see a term being used more, a style coming into the fashion cycle, or a singer dominating the culture landscape, well, consider my interest piqued.
Taylor Swift is a cultural touchstone, regardless of your feelings on her as an artist. It’s hard to compare the magnitude of The Era’s Tour to anything else in recent years.
And from the first announcement to every night of the US show being live streamed on TikTok, it was clear that this was something everyone was going to be talking about.
It’s safe to say Scotland experienced an outsized impact from the American songstress: a triple whammy of record-breaking concerts — officially the biggest in Scotland’s history — and the starting point of the UK leg of her tour. That’s a big moment for the country.
And Scotland embraced it. Boundaries and barriers were dropped. It was good, it was silly, it was fun. Many will say it was cringe, but most good things in life are.
It was important to the Story Shop team that we made the most of this opportunity; a record-breaking show that saw Edinburgh drowned in a sea of Era’s fits doesn’t come around every year. We also understood that just because something isn’t for us, doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about.
And ultimately, we had fun. We laughed. We cried. We Swiftly idea generated and actioned.
So, what did we do?
We renamed Topolobamba to Tayolobamba. And it was in good company with an entire loch, a stadium, and trains changing their monikers, too. It truly was Tayinburgh. Swiftinburgh? Anyway, you can read all about it in Sky News, The Scotsman (thrice), Daily Record, SLTN, and The Dram.
We helped Vault City sing about their 22% discount — available only from the Wee Vault.
We spread the word about The Citizen Bar’s Taylor Swift cocktails, a partnership with Absolut Vodka that came with a free friendship bracelet.
We questioned whether a baby should be at a Taylor Swift concert at all, let alone on the floor – and Kelvinside Academy were there to answer our queries in The Huffington Post and The Sun.
And when AC by Marriott Glasgow noticed a spike in room bookings that weekend, we knew it was Swiftieconomics at work – and that there was a story to be told.
We told how The Reeling, a traditional Scottish music festival, was set to go head to head with Miss Swift’s Edinburgh tour – and how thousands descended upon the festival anyway.
Thanks for reading, and a formal apology to all members of the Story Shop team that received a panicked ‘WHAT TAYLOR SWIFT SONG COULD BE A PUN FOR GUACAMOLE?’ message from me. Won’t happen again. Not until Blink-182.
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