If Taylor Swift releases a single and the media + social media don’t go into overdrive about it, has she even released a single at all?

The hype for new music from Swift has been growing since 12th April when her official site turned into a countdown clock, suggesting a major announcement was coming on 26th April. There was febrile decoding of her subsequent posts on Instagram – from heart-shaped brooches to cats on a sofa and even the repetition of pastel hues. There were no interviews or official statements ahead of this. Which only ramped up the speculation. This is a well-oiled machine that knows everything will be dissected and publicly discussed by fans keen to prove they cracked the code first and also put under the microscope by media sites thirsty for the clicks.

Why even bother promoting and explaining anything in advance when everyone else does it for you?

Then, as promised, on the morning of 26th April, the single ‘ME!’ was released and Swift did a live Q&A session on YouTube to coincide with this. Rather than give a media outlet the exclusive, she made it all about the fans (although the cynical would suggest they will all be obsequious in their questioning and not derail the campaign). Within minutes of the track and video going live, think pieces and semiotic breakdowns of the single were appearing online – proof of the age of the instant hot take working in hyperdrive. “At long last Taylor Swift returns, but ‘ME!’’s message of self-acceptance can’t reach beyond the superficial” (NME); “All the references in Taylor Swift’s Me! video” (BBC); “What the Hell Do All These Taylor Swift Clues Mean? An Investigation” (Vulture); “Taylor Swift’s ME! is a musical-inspired return to her happily uncool brand” (The Guardian). You get the idea.

This is marketing that second-guesses the scale of fan and media analysis and, in doing so, exacerbates it. The song and video are packed with allusions and inter-textual references to her life, her celebrity and her musical evolution and, as such, shows an artist keenly aware of the scrutiny they are already under but also, with an eyebrow carefully arched, encouraging that scrutiny to continue.

It manages to be about the past, the present and the future of Taylor Swift as a pop star and “Taylor Swift” as a cultural phenomenon at the same time. And everyone with an interest in her (as a fan or as rolling media coverage) immediately combs through what is on offer in the quest for meaning.

To fan the fan flames, she claimed in the YouTube Q&A that the video for ‘ME!’ contains multiple Easter eggs. “Some you’ll find out right away and some will take a minute to reveal their meaning,” she said. Cue the inevitable frenzy among fans to find them, with Lover or (more likely) Kaleidoscope being their front runners for the title of the next album.

Then the publication of the recordbreaking numbers give it all an extra boost. YouTube was first out of the gates here, reporting the video was watched 65m times in its first day – the biggest 24-hour debut by any solo act on the video platform. Others will inevitably follow when its first week is over.

The song and the video get multiple plays in the hunt to uncover every clue and the play numbers get analysed to understand the Taylor Swift effect – so even its rolling success becomes a news story.

And with the accelerating hype comes the opportunity to sell a range of merchandise items from her official site that plug the gap between the first single and the release of her seventh album – whenever that will be. Items for sale include: a “pink colour fade long sleeve crop tee” ($55); a “beige tote with floral design” ($20); a “lavender tote with multicolour text design” and featuring the word “AWESOME!” (a reference to the song’s lyrics) ($20); and a variety of “multicolor phone stand[s]” with images and colours from the ‘ME!’ video. Oh, and there’s a space at the end to buy a download version of the “7th studio album coming soon” ($11.99).

It’s obviously incredibly carefully plotted, but it aims to look effortless. Doing all the hard work up front means everyone else will do your promotion for you as soon as the first piece of content arrives. This is what we can call Advanced POOD (Pushing On Open Doors) Marketing.