Oh man, my first opinion piece, and it’s going to be a long one. For the last two or so weeks, the It Ends With Us movie saga has dominated my social feeds. The Blake VS Justin campaigning. The speculation. The unconfirmed reports. The Fake News. And all the other elements in between that, in my opinion, are all by design.

(Side Note perhaps – this piece is not about who you like or who you support. It’s about the PR machine at work – IMO)

So hear me out, I have a theory that this PR machine we are seeing all started with Taylor Swift. Yes, I said it. Disclaimer, I am in no way a Swiftie, a Lively fan, a Justin fan, or even in the Colleen Hoover camp. I’m just a marketing chick observing this from my home office. So let’s begin:

It Starts with Taylor

Not too long ago, and still somewhat, the world was all about Taylor Swift, from her mega Eras tour to her dating life. Whether or not you cared who Taylor Swift was dating, it somehow ended up on your social media feed(s). I don’t live in America, so I don’t particularly care for American football and its comings and goings. However I, by no choice of my own, now know there’s a man named Travis Kelce that plays football.

Now in the super-mega-all-consuming hype of Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce, we place Taylor at the game, and who is standing next to her in their suite. Blake Lively. Looking rather overdressed, no less beautiful, at the game, next to the most reported-on, spoken-about celebrity at the time. Blake’s name is starting to pop up. The Gossip Girl sound on TikTok starts making its rounds again. Colleen posts a BTS from the making of her movie-book adaptation. The wheels begin to turn.

Step one – Sow the seed of interest with all the wives of football fans, or just general fans of football and Taylor Swift. (That’s a huge chunk of the buying market).

It Continues with Ryan

Deadpool & Wolverine enter the scene. One of the most fan-wanted, anticipated movies in the action/Disney/Marvel world. Again, whether or not, you had any interest in watching a revived Logan and borderline-annoying Deadpool beat each other to a pulp at the movie house, you knew about this movie in some way or another. We are taping into a new market here people. Disney/Marvel fans. Now this is a fanbase that is a complete powerhouse of its own. That has a fanbase that is so loyal, that very few franchises can compete with that.

Right – now all eyes are on the premieres and promotions for this movie, I mean they went all out. Every channel on YouTube that did some kind of interview-style content had Ryan & Hugh on their show.

(Side note – how has Sean Evans from Hot Ones not suffered any health problems from consuming so much hot sauce? I hope he is well!)

Throw in a drone show that breaks a Guinness world record. And who enters that chat once again? Blake Lively. Again who’s on our lips and feeds? We just can’t help it. We see cute little moments on the red carpet between Blake and Ryan, outfits that are striking and bold, (and Hugh.)

Also, just a sidebar here for a second, the PR machine is also really taping into consumers’ hunger for nostalgia. Reviving a technically dead Wolverine (yes, yes the multi-verse, whatever), using a N’Sync song for the opening scene of the movie in a time & space where N’Sync has brought out a song for the Trolls movie and the rumour mill is just doing its thing to try to force a N’Sync reunion tour. Cry me a river, people!

It Now Continues with Blake & Justin

We’ve finally made it to the point of today’s news. The unconfirmed rumours swirling around the movie and all the behind-the-scenes drama with Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni. Actually, it’s all of the movie cast and team VS Justin Baldoni, so the rumour mills would have us believe. People are scratching up old interviews, cutting and cropping new ones to feed into each narrative.

Now this is what I think is genius. How do you as a movie (possibly a second one in the pipeline) without the loyal supporting fan base of Marvel or Disney make a box office splash? And never mind, just making a splash on opening weekend – how do you keep up those numbers and build up the PR worth without the backing of those mega-sized entities? You create drama.

In a world, where true crime is an obsession and attention spans are short. The minds behind creating longevity in media attention need to get smart, they need to get cunning. They need to hold us in a chokehold of interest for as long as possible before the next drama comes along.

All of this would be so easily put to bed. Put Blake & Justin a press junket together, or have them make a joint statement. End of drama. End of speculation. End of hundreds and hundreds of TikTok videos piecing together the evidence of the so-called feud. End of Google search volume spikes. End of the interest in the movie.

But there is another perspective here. The movie’s true message. ‘Be the end of the cycle of toxic and abusive relationships.’ As much as people are talking about Blake VS Justin, there is a camp of people on Justin’s side talking about domestic violence, and fighting against the Blake camp where it’s all hair product launches and beautiful dresses. (Again we’re hitting the nostalgia note here with that Britney Spears dress at one of the premieres). Isn’t this whole drama such a true representative of how domestic violence so often gets hidden behind beautiful things? Beautiful family photos are on Instagram, and a cute reel of a birthday surprise is shown with everyone laughing. Us not truly knowing what goes on when the cameras are off. Isn’t this EXACTLY what this movie is all about?

Irrespective, I think it’s genius. The movie is being spoken about, Justin’s campaign for awareness is being spoken about, domestic violence is being spoken about, and Blake Lively’s hair brand is being spoken about. All the elements of a well-oiled, brilliantly put-together PR masterpiece.

Might I also add that with a combined net worth of around 1.7 billion US dollars between Blake, Ryan & Taylor (a big chunk being Taylor’s), why couldn’t they have pulled this off?

This is How it Ends with Taylor

We’ve made a full circle though – what song is currently trending on social media? The song all the internet sleuths are using to get more eyes on their videos. my tears ricochet by none other than Taylor Swift.

✨ Fully circle magic! ✨

There is only one problem I see in this whole thing. It feels like this is all at the expense of Colleen Hoover’s piece of mind. Those who know would know that she has also been very vocal about protecting this story and now it has been used as a tool in a much larger machine. Where everyone is set to gain something from it, even her yes, but at what cost?

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The End