Did you notice the color orange unusually often last week? No? Then you’ve trained your algorithm to be remarkably resistant to pop culture – and, presumably, none of your female friends and family members are sporting colorful friendship bracelets. Whether you realized it or not, that puts you in a minority.
Taylor Swift announced her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, on Wednesday. On her NFL boyfriend Travis Kelce’s podcast, she held up a vinyl cover with orange glitter lettering, explaining that orange represents how her life has felt lately.
It didn’t take long for companies to spring into action. From Starbucks to United Airlines to Netflix, brands flooded social media with orange-themed memes. A Google search for “Taylor Swift” now yields a cascade of orange confetti. One company that seemed especially delighted by the trend was car rental brand Sixt, which promoted “Taylor-Made Cars for Showgirls” in its signature orange. ProAV association Avixa, whose branding is also orange, unfortunately missed the moment.
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The out-of-home advertising industry, however, jumped on the Swiftie bandwagon. US network owner Outfront, for instance, had orange confetti streaming across its LED billboards.
German outdoor advertisers, by contrast, remained unimpressed by the orange craze. Although it would have been a prime moment to show off the real-time power of digital-out-of-home that industry lobbyists love to praise. But At the pace Taylor Swift releases new music, we’ll probably be looking at another album in a year or so. My guess? It’ll be purple.