Taylor Swift: Media Darling?
Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) published a report earlier last week on the best and worst sellers at the newsstand for 2012. Although I may not be Taylor Swift’s biggest fan, I have to admit I was surprised to see her magazine sales were low. WWD measured her sales based on her covers of Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour, Bazaar and Cosmopolitan in 2012, with data for the publisher’s coming from Alliance for Audited Media. Arguably, these magazines attract different audiences, but what was similar were the low results in comparison to other celebrities who covered the same magazines. Comparatively, Swift was the worst-selling cover for Cosmo in 2012, underperforming by 20% below the six-month average. She performed slightly above the six-month average for Bazaar, Glamour and Vanity Fair- but not well in comparison to Lady Gaga, Kate Middleton or Lauren Conrad.
Other low sellers of the year included Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Rihanna. Rihanna’s November Vogue cover was the second-worst seller of the year behind the dismal “Olympic edition.” Rihanna has been a fairly tumultuous subject in the media over the past year – so I can understand her low performance on the cover of Vogue- especially after WWD’s hypothesis that magazines can count on “Newsy” public figures like Middleton to sell covers. Considering the stats, why is Swift not popular at the newsstand?
Is she just too available?
Swift is a media staple, but it’s been interesting to see in the last year the backlash surrounding her relationships (or breakups for that matter), the negative representation of women in her lyrics and generally things she’s been saying in the media. Despite all of this, she’s had commercial success with latest album Red and an ever-growing fan base. Swift is a magnet for gossip, attributing to the theories floating around blogs right now as an answer to her low-selling magazine covers: she’s overexposed. According to Buzzfeed, Swift is currently a top performer on UsMagazine.com. It becomes hard to take her seriously on the cover of Vogue or Bazaar, when that same month she’s on the cover of nearly every tabloid. In her Vanity Fair April interview with Nancy Jo Sales, Swift speaks on her coverage in the tabloids, especially concerning the rumour that she chases guys:
…And the fact that there are slide shows of a dozen guys that I either hugged on a red carpet or met for lunch or wrote a song with but I apparently was, quote unquote, ‘linked’ to them—it’s just kind of ridiculous…I’m sick of the tabloids’ saying I obsess over guys. Why would you obsess over guys? They don’t like it,” says Swift.
Jo Sales touches on the idea that Swift herself actually perpetuates these rumours by writing songs about her past relationships. “It probably doesn’t help [the] situation that Swift writes songs about the guys she dates and then sends her fans on scavenger hunts to find out who they are,” says Jo Sales. I think if anything, this just complicates Swift’s image. Yahoo spoke with a crisis-PR consultant on Swift’s low 2012 magazine sales who suggested that the backlash can’t be that strong considering her album sales are still so high. It’s complicated when the negative press Swift is getting also equates to high album sales. I am a firm believer in the idea of “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it”- but I think Swift’s team needs to better manage some of the negative press she’s getting to prevent it from hurting her bottom line in the future. I don’t think she needs to publicly address the following issues, but I do think Swift needs to better control what she’s saying in the media:
- Swift drew criticism when she mocked ex-boyfriend Harry Styles (One Direction) during her Grammy performance. Editor in Chief at Glamour, Cindi Leive also suggested that the negative press surrounding Swift’s breakup with Styles may have had something to do with her low sales on the cover of Glamour.
- Swift’s management company failed to properly handle her fan mail when someone recently discovered a pile of unopened fan mail in a dumpster in Nashville. Instead of offering an apology (Swift remains mum on the issue), Swift’s publicist provided what seemed to be an “automated response.”
- Swift waged war against Tina Fey and Amy Poehler fans everywhere (myself included) when she revealed she couldn’t take a joke.
If Swift wants to be taken seriously as an artist, her camp needs to evaluate what’s happening to her public image– especially in the wake of these low-selling covers of magazines.
Yes, she most definitely is overexposed in the media and needs to simmer down a little. Great blog post!