Everything that Taylor Swift touches seemingly turns to gold – especially if it’s a product from a small business.
Cassey Ho, founder of activewear brand Popflex, recently learned this lesson when Swift was seen wearing the brand’s purple pirouette skort in a YouTube Short. Swift also seemingly included a nod to the skirt in her song “imgonnagetyouback.” The track on Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poet’s Department, includes the lyric, “Lilac short skirt, the one that fits me like skin.”
Swifties quickly took notice of this implied endorsement of Popflex’s product, immediately selling out the brand’s supply. Ho, a Taylor Swift fan herself, knew that she needed to take action to capitalize on the massive amount of attention on her brand.
The most important change she made was accepting pre-orders of the purple pirouette skort. The store doesn’t usually accept pre-orders, but she is also working closely with suppliers to make sure the skirts will be produced and shipped as quickly as possible. She also added “Cassey’s Version” to the product name and mentioned the “imgonnagetyouback” lyrics in the product description.
Aside from these small changes and posting to social media, Ho and the Popflex team aren’t doing much extra to promote the products. They understand that the implied endorsement from Swift and the attention the brand is already getting from her fanbase is more powerful than most actions they can take. So they’re choosing to focus efforts on fulfilling orders and keeping product quality high to satisfy the existing demand.
However, with increased attention also comes increased copycats. Popflex has already had to deal with numerous brands recreating the design. Luckily, Popflex has an active community of existing fans who are helping to spot and report these reproductions and spread the word about where the initial design came from.
Ho told Inc., “The community is doing their work to help spread the word, which is amazing. There’s kind of like this deeper soul to Taylor wearing the skirt.”
Taylor Swift herself may never endorse your products or wear them in a video. However, small businesses can periodically find success due to viral posts or endorsements on a smaller scale. So, having systems and communities in place to act quickly can help you capitalize on these quick bursts of attention – no matter the source or scale.