The Taylor Swift Campaign
Love her or not, Taylor Swift is a name everyone recognizes – unless you’ve somehow avoided pop culture. Her record-breaking The Eras Tour was set to end in Vancouver on December 8th 2024, following three sold-out shows in BC Place. It was a historic moment for the city and TransLink had to ride on the opportunity.
Here’s a summary of the award-winning, innovative campaign that positioned public transit as part of the concert experience.
The Objectives
The concert was set to draw global fans for the tour’s epic finale. TransLink wanted to create a campaign to encourage attendees to use public transit to get to BC Place and back to their accommodations. Therefore, TransLink had to increase riders’ trust in their vehicles’ ability to handle large crowds.
In addition, TransLink wanted to seamlessly position transit as a part of the concert experience, while making it visually clear that TransLink’s transportation fleet was designed for Swifties.
The Campaign
To capture the attention and trust of the target audience, TransLink needed to authentically learn the Taylor Swift fan culture. It had become a known tradition among concertgoers to trade friendship bracelets – small but meaningful tokens that would leave Swifties emotionally invested to continue throughout the 149-stop tour.
Creatively, the campaign led with friendship bracelets – a signal, or “Easter egg,” that only true Swifties would know how to decode.
The Channels
Stadium-Chinatown is the SkyTrain Expo-Line station that sits directly across from BC Place, the venue for Taylor Swift’s Vancouver shows. TransLink decorated the stop with a Taylor Swift-themed map and customized a new sign for the station to strengthen the visuals of the campaign. In addition, social media videos, digital guides, and informational postcards featuring the same visual tactics were used to promote the use of public transit
The Results
TransLink recorded 1.9 million transit journeys during the concert weekend. In addition, the campaign generated 1.4 million views on the company’s social media platforms. The success of the campaign demonstrated the power of incorporating a target audience’s culture and engagement triggers to provide a meaningful, memorable experience.
The Recognition
In 2025, BCAMA awarded TransLink the “Innovation Award” for its Taylor Swift Campaign – a project that sought to engage a vast fandom by listening to them and learning from them. At a time when female-driven fandoms are so often dismissed as frivolous, TransLink did the opposite. They gave them regard they had earned and made their commute to the concert part of the show experience.
