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Denise Chen

Mrs. Flannery

Academic Writing

12th October

Taylor Swifts 'Seemingly' Influence in Marketing

Taylor Swift's influential power extending beyond her musical career, is once more

emphasized by the recent 'Seemingly Ranch' trend which is currently receiving global

attention. In a New York Times article written by Santul Nerkar on September 28th, 2023, he

explores the impact a simple picture of the famous popstar had on our society as well as how

numerous brands reacted to it. Furthermore, he analyzes the particular marketing strategies

used by the companies in regard to the Taylor Swift ‘Seemingly Ranch’ trend.

Taylor Swift is an icon of the current pop culture, and has recently gone through a

marketing show of regaining control of her studio’s albums. These new versions of the songs

are now labelled as “Taylor’s version” and have garnered the singer a new image in the

spotlight. Combined with her recent music tour “The Eras Tour”, she has reached millions of

fans and has constantly been placed in the spotlight. One such incident was the recent photo

of the pop superstar at football player Travis Kelce’s game, featuring Taylor Swift seemingly

eating chicken and two dipping sauces, with one of the sauces being called “seemingly

ranch”. As the author Santul Nerkar explains: The post went so-called viral, ergo reaching a

huge audience and even emerging into a trend. Subsequently this slogan has now been

adopted for own gain by many companies: “Brands ranging from Lay’s potato chips to

Mercedes’s Formula 1 team jumped to capitalize.” Another marketing opportunity the author

picked up, was used in terms of branding: “Buffalo Wild Wings used the moment to promote

its ranch dressing and other dips, referring to several of its dips as “Possibly” Bleu Cheese,

“Might Be” Asian Zing and “I Think This Is” Buffalo.” Further, according to a spokeswoman
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from Hidden Valley, the company experienced a surge in social media interactions after

rebranding its account names to the Taylor Swift reference, setting a new record for

engagement.

Consequently, to the numerous marketing strategies, one note that targeted social

media, which seems to be rather simple, was the most common tool other than putting a lot of

work in inventing something new. Yet the social media presence was proven to be very

efficient as the use of this absurd marketing strategy led to higher numbers for the individual

companies. Moreover, it was established that branding as well as slogans were preferred in

this ‘seemingly ranch’ trend. Finally, Taylor Swifts tremendous influence was showcased, as

companies gained a lot of publicity and engagement with different target groups by

referencing the popstar on social media platforms as well as in terms of products.

Work Cited

Nerkar Santul “Tanks to Taylor Swift, Ranch Dressing Is ‘Seemingly’ Everywhere.” The

New York Times, 28 September 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/28/business/taylor-

swift-travis-kelce-seemingly-ranch.htm