And, baby, that's trademark protection for you.This week's BL Business Branding entry explores how musical powerhouse Taylor Swift has built a robust intellectual property portfolio to shake off the competition and grow into an internationally recognized megabrand.
With her twelfth album recently announced, Taylor Swift has once again been dominating headlines as excitement grows among her fans for the release of The Life of a Showgirl on October 3rd. Following the success of the Eras Tour, this new album continues a long line of Taylor Swift announcements that double as cultural events – stopping internet traffic as timelines explode in the carefully color-coordinated palette of her new era and comment sections analyze every background image and potential reference to try and decode what the new songs might have in store. We know All Too Well the impact that a Taylor Swift album drop can have. So, how did Swift build a brand with such staying power?
A key part of Taylor Swift's business model is a robust and proactive trademark portfolio. During her early music career, Swift proactively filed her first trademark for her name before her fame exploded on the scene. Since then, she has maintained an active, diverse intellectual property portfolio that is Bigger Than the Whole Sky and worked to secure protections for many of the iconic features of her powerful brand. Everything from album titles and famous lyrics to the names of her three cats have trademark applications registered with the USPTO. The goods and services of her trademarks range from the expected musical recordings to clothing and accessories, all the way to Christmas stockings. Swift is so active in protecting her intellectual property that she has established a separate entity to manage it – TAS Rights Management, LLC.
Long Story Short, this foundation of intellectual property protection has allowed Swift to build an empire on her ability to capitalize and control the image and products associated with her brand. As evidenced by her well-documented journey to acquire ownership of the master recordings of her first six studio albums, Swift clearly values the power of ownership when it comes to key pieces of intellectual property. Now that she has full ownership of her entire music catalog, an ever-growing intellectual property portfolio, and a fanbase that is still hungry for more, there's no telling what else Swift might have in the works these days. But whatever it is, we'll be.... Ready For It.
What Can Businesses Learn From This?
Trademark protection is always in Style, and Taylor Swift is a great example of what a proactive approach to securing rights to your IP can lead to. Filing for registration with the USPTO should not be the End Game when creating a brand – it should happen early in the process so you can confidently build off it in the future. As businesses develop and grow, they should continue to monitor for additional potential trademarks that can be filed beyond the basic business name and logo. Gaining protections for unique additional elements associated with your brand can both help you protect your business and lead to licensing and merchandising opportunities with partners.
You don't need to be The Lucky One to leverage intellectual property protections to boost your brand. A proactive, strategic approach to managing your brand identity can help your business achieve its own era of growth and success by unlocking the value of what sets you apart from your competition to grow your revenues.
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