From music to fashion, pop icon Taylor Swift wields a heavy influence on consumer habits, including the sale of caskets, as a Massachusetts-based business discovered.
Joshua Siegel, COO of Titan Casket, told Business Insider that Swift's music video for her single "Anti-Hero" from her new album, "Midnights" features one of his company's caskets. Since the music video was released, there has been a "huge spike in traffic" to the company's website.
"One of our employees is a big Swiftie, and, of course, she watched it," Siegel said of the music video. "She thought it was our casket and sent around a link. Liz remembered we had sold that exact casket to a production company in July. We called them and they confirmed that yes, that was the one; it was an exciting moment."
The music video for "Anti-Hero," which was written and directed by Swift, includes a comical interlude in which the singer/songwriter imagines her own funeral where her hypothetical future children bicker over her will.
"I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money she thinks I left them in the will," Swift sings. "The family gathers round and reads it and then someone screams out, 'She's laughing up at us from hell.'"
The skit features comic and actor Mike Birbiglia as one of Swift's sons who is reading her will at her funeral.
"It's the worst," he declares before sharing that the beach house his siblings had been arguing over had been "turned into a f**king cat sanctuary."
"What?! Cats don't even like the beach!" her daughter-in-law proclaims.
Birbiglia reads the rest of the will, which states: "To my children I leave ... 13 cents. P.S. there's no secret encoded message that means something else. Love, Taylor."
Meanwhile, Swift peeks out from the casket and then makes an escape.
"We did not pay for the placement," Siegel told Highsnobiety, adding that, when the production company purchased the casket "we never could have imagined it was for one of the most famous and universally liked artists on the planet."
As Siegel told Business Insider, the aim of Titan Casket is to "build a responsible business where we can keep prices low" and Swift may have just propelled that goal.
"We expect over time that will not only help our business, but also will help families have better outcomes because they know they have options," he added about the music video.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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