Taylor Swift fans go nuts for the casket in her video. Now there’s a Swiftie discount
With the release of her new album, Taylor Swift has her fans behaving in quite unconventional ways — including watching Thursday Night Football, depriving themselves of sleep and now … looking to buy caskets?
Whether they stayed awake throughout the night or set their alarms for 8 a.m. ET on Friday, Oct. 21, plenty of Swifties (as fans call themselves) watched the early-morning premier of “Anti-Hero,” the first music video from the pop megastar’s new studio album “Midnights.”
Halfway through the five-minute video, there’s a two-minute skit about Swift’s very own funeral. She’s shown peeking out from inside an Orion Series casket from Titan, which is the casket company’s most popular model, according to its website.
Eventually, Swift gets out of the casket to watch the chaotic ceremony unfold before her.
An eagle-eyed Swiftie identified the Orion Series in the copper color. They posted it on their blog, Taylor Swift Style, which is dedicated to identifying fashions worn by the composer.
“Not the content you expected is it,” the blogger wrote on Instagram. And on Twitter, they wrote: “If you’re in the market for a casket, might I recommend the one by @titancasket ($1.1k) that @taylorswift13 features in the #AntiHero music video.”
The company jumped in and started engaging with fans on Twitter. “I can confirm that this is our casket, we are really nice, and our mission is to help save families >50% on a casket price by offering options outside of funeral homes. Funeral homes are legally mandated to accept 3rd party caskets, per the FTC’s funeral rule. Have a nice day!”
Because casket sales are made around-the-clock, a Titan Casket employee who is a Swiftie also spotted her employer’s casket in the music video and confirmed it was the very one the Bellevue, Washington-based direct-to-consumer company sold to a production company in July, according to Joshua Siegel, one of the company’s co-founders and chief operating officer.
“It’s been an interesting week,” Siegel told McClatchy News on Oct. 24. “To see one of the most famous, universally liked people on the planet coming out of our casket.”
Only one day before the video came out, Siegel and Titan Casket co-founder Scott Ginsberg presented in front of the Federal Trade Commission on modernizing rules around casket purchases and the right to buy outside of a funeral home. The FTC voted unanimously to revise the rule and consider requiring funeral homes to display or provide price information online or electronically via email.
“You know, you start a small business like this out of your home, watch it grow for a few years, and then one day you wake up and you see this incredibly famous person in your product,” Siegel said.
Before long, he was engaging with fans on social media. He said the response was overwhelmingly positive. Some fans even wanted to know how they could secure the casket for their own funeral whenever their time might come.
“You have to have a sense of humor in this business,” he said. “One person asked about a discount code, so we set that up.”
Titan Casket now offers a discount of $50.13 (because 13 is Swift’s lucky number) through the end of 2023, Siegel said. They weren’t able to offer 13% off, because they’re already priced very low, Siegel said.
One fan asked if they could do a layaway or get a discount. Siegel set it up, and another fan asked if they could preorder a casket for their death “in 40 or 50 years.” Siegel wrote back that he would be “happy to extend the deadline through 12/31/2082.”
Another fan posted a screenshot of the casket in their online shopping cart with the “SWIFTIE” code applied for the $50.13 off. “Wait it’s legit,” they wrote.
“I won’t be buried in any other casket,” another replied.
Roughly one-third of U.S. families put aside a plan for a funeral, usually through the traditional funeral industry, Siegel said. Typically families will do it to remove the burden from their grieving family in the event of their death.
The company was already about 45 days out from launching a pre-planning program, so customers can pick out their own casket and put the money for it in a trust where it’s protected and they can spare their family from overspending when the time comes.
Word’s still out on whether Swift planned all this. She’s known for including Easter Eggs in her music for her fans, and the last song on the album is called “Mastermind.” Republic Records did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Siegel said when Titan made the sale in July, all they knew about the buyer was that it was a production company.
“I never would imagine it was for somebody this popular,” he said. “It could have been a college student. Instead, it was Taylor Swift.”
This story was originally published October 25, 2022 at 12:06 PM with the headline "Taylor Swift fans go nuts for the casket in her video. Now there’s a Swiftie discount."
