What Will Happen to Ted Lasso's Twitter Account?

Hellooooooo. Welcome to this week’s Logged On! Let’s get into it. Today we are talking about:

• Brands buying Taylor Swift suites

• Merriam-Webster’s perfect reply

• What will happen to Ted Lasso’s Twitter account?

• How Instagram ranking works

• Rainbow logos and Pride

• A good post from Ben & Jerry’s

Move Over Clients, Influencers Are the New Brand +1

Brands buying private suites at sporting events and concerts is nothing new. 

But the guest list is changing.

In the past, clients and big partners of the brand typically got invited to these exclusive brand suites. 

Now influencers are getting the golden ticket.

The other week I watched my FYP blow up with influencers who were invited by brands to go see Taylor Swift at MetLife Stadium. Abby Bible, who has 59K Instagram followers, thanked Hero Cosmetics for “an unforgettable experience!!”. Davis Burleson, who has 533K followers on TikTok, posted a video giving a tour of the suite and tagged Tangle Teezer. And Serena Kerrigan, who has 184K Instagram followers, wrote “@taylorswift is my religion 🙏🏼 thank you for bringing me to church @shiseido”. 

serena kerrigan

serena kerrigan on Instagram: ”@taylorswift is my religion 🙏🏼 thank you for bringing me to church @shiseido #erastour”

May 30, 2023

Interestingly, none of the above posts disclosed any kind of sponsorship or partnership. Just a simple “thank you”.

I was intrigued. So I decided to DM Serena to see if she’d give me the lowdown on this kind of influencer activation. Turns out she’s “obsessed with marketing” and was happy to share her experience.

“I thought it was a really great way for a brand to get exposure without it being an Instagram story or paid content. Because I was so grateful for the experience itself, I was tagging Shiseido,” Serena tells me. “What was promised was, ‘Hey, want to come see Taylor Swift? We have a suite.’ There was no conversation about tagging or posting, but every influencer did it because they genuinely wanted to thank the brand.”

I can’t deny it’s smart from a brand perspective. The formula works: Take an event that you know the influencer's audience is going to be so excited to watch and engage with organically—and insert yourselves. Especially given how sponsored content performance can be so volatile, this feels almost like a safer option. If I quickly do the math, it’s a good deal too: If a brand pays $60,000 for a suite (that’s the current price for the LA shows) with 20 tickets and they give 15 tickets away to big influencers, that’s about a $3,000 “fee” per influencer. Going to assume that’s lower than most of those influencers’ usual rates for a tag.

As Serena puts it, “The mistake people make with influencer marketing is that they try to beat the consumer in the head with a product. It's always about the product. Consumers don't want that. They want to see a story. They are drawn to me seeing Taylor Swift, right? And then they see the messaging embedded—the subtext of Serena Kerrigan at Taylor Swift was Shiseido. And so now, when people think of me going to Taylor Swift, I bet you that they're gonna be like, ‘Oh yeah, who brought her? Shiseido?’. Now that name is in the consumer's head and in their mouth.” 

The fact I was able to so easily pull up the examples I listed above is proof of that point. I remembered who Davis tagged in his suite tour and who Abby thanked for the experience. Is it going to make me buy the product? No. But it did intrigue me to look up what the hell a “tangle teezer” is. And maybe that’s exactly the point.

A Very Good Reply

After Padma Lakshmi announced she would be leaving Top Chef, Merriam-Webster commented with just a link to the definition of LEGEND. So smart. So good. Padma even quote tweeted it...