Taylor Swift's Midnights may have given us the soundtrack to Sad Girl Autumn, but for direct-to-consumer casket company Titan, the album provided something infinitely more valuable: free press.
The Massachusetts-based business, which supplies caskets at significantly lower prices than funeral homes typically charge, enjoyed a major PR moment thanks to Swift's music video for "Anti-Hero," the third track off her new project.
The visual, directed by Swift herself, includes a skit that imagines her funeral — and where there's a funeral, there's (usually) a casket. A polished bronze beauty, Swift's sarcophagus is made by none other than Titan, which published a press release announcing its supporting role in the clip. (Somehow, fan account @tswiftstyle managed to identify the casket days before Titan made an official announcement. The FBI works hard, but Swifties work harder.)
"We did not pay for the placement," Titan co-founder and COO Joshua Siegel clarified over email. "A production company bought the casket from us in July for a music video, but we never could have imagined it was for one of the most famous and universally liked artists on the planet."
Titan's inclusion in the video was spotted by an employee, who brought the cameo to Seigel's attention. "We're excited for the coverage it brings to our mission around consumer rights," he said, adding that the video's release came at an opportune time.
The day before Swift's video dropped, Titan — which recently secured $3.5 million in funding — presented in front of the Federal Trade Commission, which protects families' rights to purchase caskets from third-party providers rather than directly from a funeral home.
Has Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" video inadvertently rendered her the face of the DTC casket revolution? Will Midnights spark a reckoning in the funeral home industry? Probably not, but the saying still stands: her impact.
