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Taylor Swift has teamed with Walgreens, a retailer with 7,944 locations nationwide, to debut the Taylor Swift Store at Walgreens. Beginning this week, Walgreens and select Duane Reade locations will sell Swift-themed merchandise incorporating artwork from her forthcoming album "Red" (Oct. 22, Big Machine), including t-shirts, bracelets, backpacks, tour books, posters, journals, notebooks, calendars, iPhone and iPad accessories and other items. Select items will also be available for online purchase at Walgreens.com and through the Walgreens mobile app.

Additionally, Swift fans will be able to buy "Red" at their local 24-hour Walgreens beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 22, allowing the retailer to directly compete with Walmart, Target and Best Buy, which occasionally host midnight events for major entertainment releases. Also during release week, customers will receive a 50% discount on QuickPrints, Walgreens' photo printing service, when they use the code SWIFTPRINT at check out.

"Our relationship with Taylor provides customers with convenient access to her broad range of merchandise enabling them to show their support for her," Joe Magnacca, president of daily living products and solutions for Walgreens, said in a statement. "This unique offering is another way we are delivering on our mission to make health and happiness simpler, easier and within reach for everyone on a daily basis."

Swift added, "I look forward to sharing my music and merchandise with my fans, and making it easier for them to pick up their favorite items when visiting Walgreens or Duane Reade stores."

The Walgreens partnership is the latest in an increasingly long line of high-profile branding deals Swift has been a part of in recent years. Target, for example, saw its highest one-week sales ever for the 2010 release of its exclusive deluxe edition of "Speak Now," and also made Swift a key part of a fall 2010 ad campaign with custom creative starring the singer. An exclusive deluxe edition of "Red" is also expected to be released at Target on Oct. 22.

Another retailer, Macy's, has featured Swift in its current commercials featuring celebrities like Diddy, Carlos Santana and Justin Bieber. In the spots, Swift is promoting her fragrance Wonderstruck, a highly successful partnership with Elizabeth Arden that was the No. 2 fragrance launch among women during the holiday season of 2011, according to Elizabeth Arden's fiscal first-quarter 2012 earnings report. Swift is also a current spokesmodel for CoverGirl, which sponsored her North American Speak Now tour last year, and also has highly successful lines of products with American Greetings and Sony Electronics.

View the original news article at: Billboard.biz