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Why people believe Haylor was 100% a PR stunt: a thread of a great marketing strategy with terrible execution
Just in case i decide to have Larry events in this thread, I will label them with an (L) at the beginning so if you don't believe it, or don't care about it, you can skip over it.
TS and HS are two of the most famous people in the recent music era. Their reach extends through every single livable continent, and both are household names. They share one other thing in common: a very public and extensive dating history.
T and H met at the 2012 Kids Choice awards which took place on April 1st. There is proof that they were both at this event, but not proof of any meeting between the two.
Allegedly, they exchanged phone numbers and began texting/hooking up after this event. This, however, was not confirmed by either team until October which is important later.
On April 12th, 2012, the Take Me Home tour was announced to the GP. They added an entire North American leg to this tour after the unprecedented success One Direction had with selling out the UAN tour in the US. On April 13th, 2012, we got our first article about Haylor.
Seeing that TS was, and is, one of the biggest American singers, it makes perfect sense to want her linked with H directly after announcing a tour that would feature more US shows and North American shows in general.
On April 18th, five days after the original articles linking the two, we got articles on different sites saying very different information. Half were saying that H&T were dating, while the other half said they were merely friends. The media was completely split on the topic.
The media stopped speculation about the affair soon after these articles were posted. H was seen kissing model Emma Ostilly on April 25th, while T began dating some other guy. Both H&T each had two "relationships" in between April and October of 2012.
On Oct. 19, 2012, which was 3 days before T's album Red came out, daily mail, the mirror, and perez hilton all put out almost matching articles that H had cheated on T in secret back in April. They said that fans should buy the album bc there might be a song about H on it.
That really should be enough because clearly, they used the "relationship" to promote 1D fans buying T's album on the off chance that a song about H would be on it. They fall out of the mainstream media after a week after T's album drop. However, they don't stop there.
November 9th, 2012, the day of the TMH album release, H&T are spotted wearing matching airplane necklaces. Obviously, this was to drive up the desire for T's fans to want to buy 1D's album just like they had done for Red.
The next time they were spotted together was released by Metro on Nov. 12 which was the day Little Things was released as a single. After this, it was a whirlwind "romance" that clearly helped album sales for both artists.
Some people started to throw shade on the obvious PR Stunt at this point. In an interview on Dec. 2nd with Union J, another Syco band, the interviewer asks a UJ member if they will have a beard like H has with TS. UJ all start laughing about it.
The media did not confirm that they were officially dating until The Sun posted an article about it on Dec. 7. Before this, it had already been speculated that they were moving in together and that they had met each other's families.
(L) The 7th is also the day that the iconic, "I'm happy they're good friends" interview came out, making it clear that L didn't approve of T in the slightest. This is very deviated from his promotion of Haroline that had taken place in 2011.
On Dec. 15th, the Mirror posted that T had said she was madly in love with H and would settle down with him. Mind you, this is 8 days after the relationship went public and a month after them being linked in a romantic relationship at all.
On Dec. 19th, T went to the tattoo shop with H to get his ship tattoo. In an article released in february of 2013, the tattoo artist says that there was "no way they were in love" because they didn't even seem like friends.
(L) Louis got the compass roughly 18 hours later.
(L) Louis got the compass roughly 18 hours later.
(L-ish) On Dec. 20th, 1D were asked "How's Haylor" which L replies "it is what it is" which makes H laugh instead of being upset. If this had been a real relationship, it would make much more sense for H to defend it, but instead he throws shade at it with L.
On Dec. 24, while H&T were on a skiing trip, the media again threw shade on the affair saying H cheated again, and that 1D hated T and was causing a huge rift between the boys and H. The messy narrative was presented in tandem with the happily in love narrative which made...
everything a lot more interesting for the GP to learn about. When the media is split such as how they were with H&T, there are articles constantly coming out about the affair. This made the GP want to buy both albums just to understand the affair.
On Jan. 4, 2013, H&T go on a vacation together which ends in them "breaking up" on Jan. 7, which just so happens to be the day of the final single release of TMH: Kiss You.
So basically, if Haylor was real, they had a very keen eye for release dates when choosing things to happen in their relationship. It also lasted for exactly 1 month to the day from the official announcement of a relationship to the official announcement of a break up.
But this is why people believe Haylor seemed like a great marketing strategy, but bad execution. For PR relationships to feel natural, they shouldn't pull out full speed ahead in order to enhance record sales which is exactly what Haylor did. Thx for your time :)
