Charlie Curnow

It’s hard to read much about 21^st-century sports history at this point without eventually seeing some reference to Moneyball. Which is, of course, the approach adopted by Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Under it, Beane used sabermetrics-style data analysis to identify undervalued baseball players. And to build an overperforming MLB team on a smaller budget. With a 2002 season opening payroll of $40 million, for example, even as other teams, such as the New York Yankees, had payrolls of as much as $126 million in the same season.

Situations like these aren’t just limited to professional sports, however.

Indeed, fostering business creativity can be in the hands of managers as they think about, design and establish work environments. Furthermore, creativity often requires that managers radically change the ways in which they build and interact with work groups. That’s according to Teresa M. Amabile, who published an article called “How to Kill Creativity” in the September-October 1998 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration, Emerita at Harvard Business School. More recently, she’s also the author of “Retiring: Creating a Life that Works for You.” A 2024 book that explores how the process of retiring involves a reconstruction of both the person and their life structure.

In many ways, this type of transformation can call for conscious culture change on the parts of business managers, Amabile says in the 1998 article, based on findings from 22 years of research. But it can be done, and the rewards can be great.

Meanwhile, the risks of not doing so may be even greater, Amabile says. When creativity is killed, an organization loses a potent competitive weapon: new ideas. It can also lose the energy and commitment of its people.

But even if organizations seem trapped in organizational systems that kill creativity, Amabile says, it is still possible to effect widespread change.

As an example, Amabile points to a transformation at Procter & Gamble that began in mid-1990s. Once a hotbed of creativity, P&G had in recent years seen the number of its product innovations decline significantly.

In response, P&G established Corporate New Ventures (CNV), a small cross-functional team that embodied many creativity-enhancing practices. Members of P&G’s new CNV team, for instance, were allowed to elect themselves. Which helped ensure intrinsic motivation on the part of participating professionals.

CNV team members were also given a clear, challenging strategic goal: to invent radical new products that would build the company’s future. On the other hand, however, the team was additionally given enormous latitude around how, when and where they approached their work.

Undeniably, the changed environment inhabited by P&G’s CNV team resulted in more creative output. Three years after its inception, the team had handed off 11 projects to the business sectors for execution.

And as of early 1998, those projects were beginning to flow out of the pipeline. The first product, designed to provide portable heat for several hours’ relief of minor pain, was already in test marketing. And six other products were slated to go to market within a year. Given the team’s success, P&G began to expand both the size and scope of the CNV venture.

In a marketing or advertising context, it seems reasonable that organizations could adopt similar strategies to those identified by Amabile in the P&G case. Including through the formation of small, cross-functional creative teams focused on generating innovative ideas. As well as by empowering team members by giving them the autonomy and resources they need to succeed.

Which might in turn include an environment where they feel comfortable taking risks, brainstorming freely and challenging conventional thinking. Both in terms of physical space design, and virtual communication channels.

Marketing and advertising teams could also bring more focus to radical innovation by encouraging their members to think outside the box. And develop truly groundbreaking campaigns.

At the same time, teams in marketing and advertising might also beware the risks of stifling or “killing” creativity. Including missed opportunities such as failures to capitalize on emerging trends or technologies. Or the production of ineffective “copycat” marketing campaigns that lack innovation, and subsequently often fail to capture attention or generate results. Or even a loss of talent as creative individuals leave for more stimulating environments.

All of which could make tough to stay above .500, much less win the whole thing.

In the early years of the 20^th century, the “Found Object” movement of artists, including Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, challenged traditional notions of what art could be. By elevating everyday objects like water fountains and bicycle wheels to the status of artworks, these figures demonstrated the potential for creativity to be found in the most unexpected places.

Much like in art, predictions about which business ideas will succeed in the marketplace can also be hard to make.

But on the other hand, commitment to an idea—any idea—can also be one of the only surefire ways to the increase the odds of success. That’s according to Robert I. Sutton, an organizational psychologist and Professor Emeritus of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University.

Sutton published an article called “The Weird Rules of Creativity” in Harvard Business Review back in 2001. More recently, he also published “The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder.” A 2024 book that digs into the causes and solutions for some of the most common and damaging friction troubles within organizations.

In the 2001 article, Sutton points to Apple’s Steve Jobs and his widely touted “reality distortion field” that reportedly cast a spell on those around him. Convincing them that the success of an idea, project or person was virtually certain.

But do cases like these mean companies might as well use a random process to generate possibilities to explore? In fact, it might, according to Sutton. Random selection is actually one of the best ways to ensure new business ideas won’t be biased by knowledge of past successes, Sutton says.

Sutton points to a random selection process used by Reactivity, a software company he advised. The company’s software designers had been concerned that their ideas discussed at brainstorming sessions were getting too narrow.

To help break their product innovation rut, Reactivity employees subsequently participated in an exercise in which they were given index cards and told to jot down on each a technology (one stack of cards) or an industry (a second stack). The stacks were then used to create random pairings of technologies to industries. And the group then brainstormed for five minutes on the possibilities of each pair.

Some of the index card combinations seemed hopeless (how could XML programming reshape the funeral industry?). But others, such as an idea about dynamic risk management in the shipping industry, seemed well worth researching in more detail.

Companies that want to avoid getting stuck in an innovation rut should additionally be especially wary of opinions from customers who use their current products or services, Sutton says. As well as from internal stakeholders who represent their views.

In practical terms, this could mean handling audience or customer research with a healthy dose of skepticism (Disney CEO Michael Eisner even called most of this research—and especially the prospective kind—“useless” in an interview published in the January–February 2000 issue of Harvard Business Review).

Most of the mainframe computer users that IBM surveyed in the 1970s couldn’t imagine why they’d ever want a small computer on their desks.

And according to 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe, the success of Etherlink, a high-speed way to connect computers released in 1992, happened because he ignored reports from salespeople that customers were clamoring for a slight improvement in a popular product.

The lessons to draw from all of this? Doing routine work with proven methods is the right thing to do most of the time, according to Sutton. But if part of your mission is to explore new possibilities, then your goal must be to build a culture that supports constant mindfulness and experimentation.

As well as, perhaps, a healthy dose of Dada.

There’s a key, often overlooked difference between the traditional jigsaw puzzles we solved as kids (or adults), and the newfangled PC games and mobile apps meant to replace, or at least mimic them. The digital versions always have all their pieces.

No matter how hard you try, when several pieces have gone up and disappeared from a traditional jigsaw puzzle’s box to who-knows-where, it’s simply impossible to ever truly complete the thing. Much less see the whole picture it’s meant to present.

Something similar can occur with business teams and professionals when they engage in creative problem-solving.

Often, it’s the questions that leaders and teams fail to ask in the first place that get them into trouble, according to research from three scholars from Switzerland’s International Institute for Management Development (IMD) detailed in Harvard Business Review. What’s more, these questions don’t come spontaneously. Indeed, they require prompting and conscious effort.

Arnaud Chevalier, the first research author, is a professor of strategy at IMD Business School. Frédéric Dalsace, the second author, is a professor of marketing and strategy at IMD. And Jean-Louis Barsoux, the third, is an IMD term research professor.

Barsoux is also the coauthor of ALIEN Thinking: The Unconventional Path to Breakthrough Ideas. A 2021 book that emphasizes the importance of five thinking patterns—Attention, Levitation, Imagination, Experimentation and Navigation—in leading to a fresh and flexible approach to problem-solving. Including among people such as inventors, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs and artists.

Strategic questions for business leaders can be grouped into five domains, according to Chevalier, Dalsace and Barsoux: investigative, speculative, productive, interpretive and subjective.

Investigative questions clarify the purpose leaders are facing, the researchers say, including what they want to achieve and what they need to learn to do so.

This part of the process can be fueled by successive “Why?” questions. As in the “Five Whys” developed by engineering managers at Toyota Motor Corporation as a root cause analysis tool during manufacturing. Successively asking “How?” can also help leaders transcend generic solutions and develop more sophisticated alternatives.

Speculative questions, on the other hand, help leaders consider a problem more broadly, according to the researchers. To reframe a problem or explore more-creative solutions, leaders must ask things like “What if…?” and “What else…?”

The global design firm IDEO popularized this approach with its systematic use of the prompt “How might we…?” An approach first coined by the educator, consultant and researcher Min Basadur when he was a manager at P&G to overcome limiting assumptions and jumpstart creative problem-solving.

Productive, or “Now what?” questions help leaders assess the availability of talent, capabilities, time and other resources. Influencing the speed of decision-making, the introduction of initiatives and the pace of growth.

Questions such as “How can we get it done?” “How will we synchronize our actions?” and “How will we measure progress?” can help leaders identify key metrics and milestones—along with possible bottlenecks—to align people and projects, and keep plans on track. They also expose risks, including strains on the organization’s capacity.

Interpretive “So, what…?,” or sensemaking questions enable synthesis. Pushing leaders to continually redefine the core issue. And go beneath the surface to ask “What is this problem really about?” Natural follow-ups to the other types of questions previously mentioned, they draw out the implications of an observation or idea.

And finally, in contrast with the other categories, which deal with the substance of a business challenge, subjective or “What’s unsaid?” questions deal with the personal reservations, frustrations, tensions and hidden agendas within a team or among employees. All things that in turn can push a decision-making process off course.

Team members may be reluctant to explore emotional issues unless a leader provides encouragement and a safe space for discussion, the researchers say. Furthermore, they may fail to share misgivings about an idea simply because no one else is doing so.

Business leaders must therefore invite dissenting views and encourage doubters to share their concerns, according to Chevalier, Dalsace and Barsoux. If they don’t, they risk the consequences of “pluralistic ignorance”—a social dynamic in which people mistakenly others predominantly hold an opinion different from their own.

Now just try and piece something like that one together.

Good gardens—the kind that get written up in Boston or New York magazine lifestyle and travel articles—aren’t simply grown. They’re cultivated. Before even planting anything, much less harvesting, you must prepare the area by removing any debris or rocks. You need to loosen the soil with a tiller, or by digging by hand. If necessary, you should add in materials like fertilizer or lime. You might also need to aerate the soil to blend in the nutrients. You must remove any weeds so they don’t compete with your plants for water, nutrients and sunlight.

And then, once the seeds are planted, you have to water them regularly. All while also protecting your growing plants by, for example, avoiding digging too close to them and damaging their roots.

It’s similar when we’re trying to cultivate business innovation for ourselves, or our own teams.

Coming up with creative new ideas usually isn’t just a one-step process. It takes getting into the right mindset to innovate in the first place. And then once you’re there, preserving those conditions so you can keep reaping the benefits month after month, year after year.

In an article for Harvard Business Review, Soren Kaplan outlines the elements of what he calls an “innovator’s mindset.” Kaplan is author of “Experiential Intelligence.” A book released in 2023 that emphasizes the importance to business success not merely of what people have learned over time but how they perceive challenges, view opportunities and tackle goals.

Kaplan is also the founder of management consultancy InnovationPoint, and an affiliate at the Center for Effective Organizations at USC’s Marshall School of Business.

An innovator’s mindset can be achieved through three steps, according to Kaplan: embracing curiosity, fostering continuous learning and encouraging open collaboration.

Curiosity fuels innovation, Kaplan says, by encouraging you to question the status quo and explore new possibilities. Proactive inquiry and a sense of wonder when approaching tasks, including tedious ones, can lead to novel solutions to existing problems. And result in process improvements, product innovations and new business models that can significantly advance your organization’s success.

An example Kaplan points to is Netflix. Todd Yellin, while still a relatively unknown analyst, took on the seemingly mundane task of enhancing the platform’s user interface.

But instead of simply tweaking visuals, Yellin got curious. He started tracking customer behavior, including what they watched, how long they watched, what they watched next and what time of day they were watching.

The insights ultimately led Yellin to reimagine how users interact with the Netflix platform. He would later spearhead the development of an algorithm that predicts and suggests content to people based on viewing history.

Another habit Kaplan recommends is continuous learning, whether in or outside of work hours. Dedicating time regularly to this purpose, such as an hour a week, can help ensure your skills and knowledge remain cutting edge. And enhance your ability to contribute to your organization, while also making you a more attractive candidate for advancement.

To foster this type of learning, professionals can explore news relevant to their area of expertise, Kaplan says. They can also attend networking events or conferences, or take online courses to complement current projects and extend skill sets. The more tools you have at your disposal, the easier it will be to adapt, shift directions and think creatively about how to problem solve when confronted with new challenges.

Outside of work, exploring new hobbies and gaining new experiences can also prove useful, according to Kaplan. Research shows that dabbling in creative activities can help us build new skills and boost our creativity on the job.

A third and final step Kaplan encourages is open collaboration. Professionals can create, for example, a monthly brainstorming session with their team or peers. Instead of hoarding ideas and working solo on projects, they can take the lead to help facilitate dialogue and feedback. Which will in turn set them apart as bridge-builders who recognize the importance of collaboration for innovation.

Keeping a weekly innovation journal to jot down ideas and reflections can also help in this area, according to Kaplan. Reflection allows you to assess your experiences, understand your thought processes and identify areas for personal and professional growth. This introspection can in turn reveal patterns, opportunities for innovation and areas where a change in approach could lead to better outcomes.

And when combined with other steps, just might help unlock more fertile courses of action.

A key first step toward greater innovation might be getting on the same page about evaluation criteria for new business ideas in the first place.

In a 2024 paper published in Nature Human Behavior based on five studies, Wayne Johnson, a researcher at the Utah Eccles School of Business, and Devon Proudfoot, an associate professor of human resource studies at Cornell’s ILR School, explored the question of why people disagree about an idea’s relevance and usefulness.

The researchers found that as ideas become more novel—that is, as they depart more from existing norms and standards—disagreement grows about their potential value.

Furthermore, people interpret greater variability in others’ judgements about an idea’s value as a signal of risk, Johnson and Proudfoot say. Which in turn reduces their willingness to invest in the idea.

Overall, these tendencies highlight one reason creative ideas might fail to gain traction in the social world, according to the researchers. And one important barrier to innovation for leaders to consider in realms from the arts and science to business.

Luckily, there are ways to build consensus around new ideas, however, as outlined by Johnson and Proudfoot in an article for Harvard Business Review.

One is to stop thinking that conflicting feedback about an idea is a sign that it’s a bad one and should be rejected. Imagine, for example, the contention that must have come into the 3M conference room when company chemist Spencer Silver proposed creating a product with an extremely weak adhesive (Silver would go on to invent Post-It notes).

Instead, Johnson and Proudfoot say, looking at disagreement as a signal that an idea features ambiguity rather than negativity could help leaders see hidden opportunity in addition to risk.

Johnson and Proudfoot further propose that leaders look at conflicting feedback as a sign that they need to explore the criteria upon which evaluators are making decisions about an idea’s worth.

The newer an idea is, after all, the harder it is to compare to what already exists. And the less likely it is there will be a common reference point or criteria on which to evaluate it.

Johnson and Proudfoot further encourage leaders to ask a new idea’s evaluators questions such as:

• “What ideas are you comparing this new idea to?”
• “On what grounds did you find those reference points successful or unsuccessful?”
• “What would success look like with this idea?”
• “What would failure look like?”

By finding out what criteria evaluators are using, leaders can better judge how well it maps onto the new proposal, the researchers say. And also assess whether some judgements are biased, such as by evaluators’ moods or other factors that are irrelevant to an idea’s value.

Additionally, by identifying strengths and weaknesses in different perspectives, leaders can use discussion to build consensus around the most pertinent factors to use in evaluating new ideas.

An alternative approach might be to create and disseminate criteria ahead of time, according to Johnson and Proudfoot. Asking evaluators to judge ideas based on specific factors such as logistical strengths and weaknesses, or advantages compared to existing offerings, for example.

Shared reference points such as case studies that relate to the strengths and weaknesses of the new idea could also help bring focus to discussions.

Finally, leaders can also hold separate meetings meant to anchor conversations on specific criteria for evaluating a new idea rather than opening them up to wide-ranging examination.

Focusing one meeting on logistical feasibility or the potential costs of a new idea, for example, and another on efficiencies and client relations impacts could help make feedback more refined and useful.

And might help make your next effort to achieve business innovation even less of a roll of the dice.

Could one of the keys to greater workplace productivity and innovation be more playfulness on the job?

According to Duncan Wardle, formerly vice president of innovation and creativity at The Walt Disney Company, and currently an innovation keynote speaker and creativity consultant at iD8 & innov8, it probably is (no joke).

In an article for Harvard Business Review, Wardle offers some of his tips for shifting a busy mind state at work to a more creative one. In the article, Wardle cites a 2023 study from researchers at the National Central University in Taiwan finding that fun at work was positively related to employees’ creative behavior.

Wardle’s recommendations include introducing short, playful activities into workplace routines that he calls “energizers.” An example he describes is having a participant draw someone they know without looking at the paper. An activity that can generate laughter and shift someone from a busy, conscious brain state (beta) to a more relaxed and creative state (alpha or theta).

The moment laughter is heard, Wardle says, it indicates people are a little more relaxed. This state allows for more informed decision-making while still enabling creative thought processes to flourish. Other activities that achieve similar objectives, according to Wardle, could include a quick walk, a playful question during meetings or even a five-minute mindfulness exercise.

Another practice Wardle recommends is to design physical spaces to encourage play. At Pixar, for example, Steve Jobs designed the campus around the concept of unplanned collaboration, with playful elements around the environment to promote creativity. And spontaneous interactions between people who wouldn’t normally meet. Specific rooms, like the ones Pixar’s BrainTrust use to give feedback on creative work, are deliberately set aside from main areas and designed to signal they’re safe spaces.

While not every company can match Pixar’s substantial investments, Wardle says, transforming a boring meeting room into a “laboratory” or “greenhouse” with some artistic touches could provide a physical signal that the space is meant for nurturing ideas and fostering a playful mindset.

Finally, Wardle suggests that leaders incorporate playfulness strategically into routines and at the right junctures to make them habits. Making short, playful breaks part of the daily routine, for example, can shift employees’ mindset from busy beta to relaxed and creative alpha or theta states.

Additionally, incorporating energizer activities into the beginning of a brainstorming or ideation session as people enter the room or immediately after breaks can counteract the return to a beta state induced by checking emails or other routine tasks.

And that’s some serious business.

Is creativity a left-brain or a right-brain activity? According to research by Drexel University’s Creativity Research Lab, creative activity is more associated with the left hemisphere of the brain, which controls logic and analysis, when a person is experienced at a task. Drexel’s study studied the brain activity of jazz guitarists of varied experience as they played improvisations.

But when someone is an unfamiliar situation, as with a novice jazz guitarist who is trying to play an improvised solo, creative productivity comes more from the right side of the brain, the study found.

That’s in part why Vaska Petkovska, director of Swedish IT field service management company Amplius, recommends in a recent Forbes Councils article that leaders participate in group mastermind brainstorming sessions with people who are outside of their regular close network. Particularly when it feels like no ideas are coming their way.

This gets a leader to use their brain actively, and receive feedback from people who might have a completely new perspective, according to Petkovska. And helps increase the chances they’ll gain insights and ideas they never thought of themselves.

Once these mastermind sessions are organized, Petkovska recommends several best practices. Sessions should begin with two minutes to present the problem at hand. Following that should be three minutes for other peers to speak and ask questions to help clarify the problem. The presenter should then exit the room, whether virtual or physical.

Next, the team should brainstorm solutions for 10 minutes, remembering to always keep an open mind to others’ suggestions. After that, the presenter should come back to listen for different solutions for five minutes.

Afterwards, the team can set up SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound) goals and a deadline for implementing chosen solutions. And then in the group’s next brainstorming session, the team can begin by sharing which actions they’ve taken since their previous meeting. This step in particular is great for accountability, according to Petkovska.

One benefit of these types of sessions is that they help you build confidence as everyone comes up with ideas and achieves a state of flow, Petkovska says. Another is that you end up networking.

If your interests align with those of others in the group, you might build real connections. Or even connect to more people who can help with your challenge by tapping into the network of your peers.

All of which sounds pretty swinging to me.

Krispy Kreme’s “Day of the Dozens,” just held this year on Thursday, December 12, offers proof that nothing spreads holiday cheer like a sweet deal. And the universal love of something free, according to a report in Forbes.

The annual deal offers a simple holiday delight: buy any dozen doughnuts, and Krispy Kreme will hand you another Original Glazed dozen for free. But for many, this promotion isn’t just a bonus. It’s an opportunity to bring a smile to coworkers, friends or family.

What’s more, the psychology behind these types of “Buy One, Get One” (BOGO) deals runs deep, the Forbes article notes. According to a study published in the Journal of Business Research, free deals make us feel rewarded and valued, turning simple purchases into memorable experiences. Krispy Kreme’s offer captures this spirit perfectly, using the holiday season’s themes of abundance and sharing to make their offer feel extra special.

One key factor is the Zero Price Effect, which suggests that we respond to the cost of “free” differently than we do any other price. The allure of “zero” creates an emotional response that overrides rational decision-making, according to 2007 research by Shampanier, Mazar and Ariely.

Indeed, demand skyrockets when something is free, even what it’s only marginally more valuable than a paid alternative. For indulgent products like Krispy Kreme’s doughnuts, the emotional appeal is especially strong. Such pleasure-driven, “hedonic” treats feel extra rewarding when there’s no price attached.

Adding to this are the effects of loss aversion, a theory developed by the economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. This theory holds that people naturally avoid losses more than they seek equivalent gains. It’s also one of the main implications of Prospect Theory. A framework outlined in the duo’s 1979 paper that’s since become the most cited in economics and one of the most cited in psychological sciences.

Overall, the thrill of getting something for free thus easily overshadows the lure of discounts. And you can add to that the principle of reciprocity, the unspoken rule that makes us want to give back when given something.

When Krispy Kreme hands you a free dozen doughnuts, it’s difficult not to want to pay it forward. Whether that’s by picking up another dozen for a friend, sharing your stash or just telling everyone about the deal.

Sounds like a treat in the making for marketers.

Brand idea for Krispy Kreme’s ‘Day of the Dozens’: ‘Sweetness. Better when shared.’

Krispy Kreme could play on the strengths of the “Day of the Dozens” promotion through additional limited-run giveaways of items. Examples of these items could include camping-style “Krispy Kreme Coffee Sharing Pots” for the first few people who take advantage of the promotion at select store locations. Such physical giveaways could have the added benefit of being social media shareable and viral.

Want to capture a consumer’s attention during a digitized contemporary holiday shopping season? Maybe try sending them something in print.

Defying predictions of doom, print catalogs have managed to remain relevant during the current e-commerce era, according to a report in Fast Company. In recent years, retailers have found that they can treat catalogs with fewer pages as a marketing tool. And now include QR and promo codes to entice customers to browse online and complete a purchase.

While no longer carrying an extended inventory of goods, catalogs are still costly to produce and ship, the Fast Company article notes. But they hold their own in value because of growing digital advertising costs. Helping retailers cut through the noise for consumers barraged by multi-format advertisements, industry officials say.

U.S. Postal Service data from December 2021 even showed a 12% year-over-year increase in the number of catalogs mailed that year. Including 300 million during the month of November alone.

In addition, notable e-commerce companies like Amazon and home good supplier Wayfair have started distributing print catalogs in an unlikely twist. In 2018, Amazon began mailing a toy catalog. That also happened to be the same year Sears, which had been mailing an annual Christmas Wish Book since 1993, filed for bankruptcy. And earlier this year, J. Crew relaunched its own glossy catalog.

According to Jonathan Zhang, a professor of marketing at Colorado State University, who was interviewed for the Fast Company article, research shows that thumbing through a catalog leaves a greater impression on consumers.

Even pint-sized presentations can still work, though, because the purpose of catalogs these days is simply to get customers’ attention, according to Zhang. Conserving paper also works better with younger customers who are worried about the holiday season’s impact on the planet.

Another factor hastening the trend toward smaller catalog sizes is postal price increases. The latest round of postage hikes in July 2024 included the category that contains the 8.5-by-11-inch size that used to be ubiquitous in the catalog industry.

Many retailers have responded to postal price increases by reducing the size of catalogs. Which in turn puts them in a lower-cost category, according to American Commerce Marketing Association executive vice president and managing director Paul Miller.

One of the favored new catalog sizes, a “slim jim,” measures 10.5 by 5.5 inches, but there are other size options as well. And some retailers have reduced costs even further by mailing large postcards to consumers.

Lands’ End, for example, is testing new compact formats to supplement its traditional catalogs. In 2024, that included folded glossy brochures and postcards, according to Chief Transformation Officer Angie Rieger.

L.L. Bean was a pioneer of the mail-order catalog after its founder promoted his famous “Maine Hunting Shoe” to hunting license holders from out-of-state in 1912. The outdoor clothing and equipment company, which is based in Freeport, Maine, is sticking to mailing out regular-sized catalogs for now.

And at least for the time being, it sounds like print catalog skeptics can take a hike.

Brand idea for L.L. Bean: ‘Proudly mail-order since 1912.’

L.L. Bean could lean into this trend by, for example, offering limited-run “1912 Mail-Order Editions” of apparel that can only be bought by holders of the print catalog. The print catalog listings could feature QR and promo codes to ensure only holders of a copy can access web order pages that aren’t searchable through the standard L.L. Bean website.

It seems like just about every airline these days wants to be a high-flyer.

Low-cost airlines are going premium, following the rapidly growing household wealth among upper-income people, according to a report in Fast Company.

Frontier Airlines organized its fares into four bundles in May, with buyers of higher-priced tickets getting extras such as priority boarding, more legroom and checked bags. Frontier also dropped ticket-change or cancellation fees except for the cheapest bundle.

Spirit followed in August with similar moves such as blocking middle seats and charging passengers more for the comfort of aisle and window seats. More recently, however, losses, mounting debt and the collapse of merger talks with both Frontier Airlines and JetBlue led Spirit to announce Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2024, from which it expects to emerge in early 2025.

JetBlue Airways, which began flying more than 20 years ago as a low-cost carrier, but with amenities, is cutting unprofitable routes and bolstering core markets, including in the Northeast and Florida. As well as delaying deliveries of $3 billion of new planes.

And starting next year, Southwest Airlines will toss out a half-century tradition of “open seating” in which passengers pick their own seats after boarding the plane. That’s after executives said extensive surveying showed 80% of customers preferred an assigned seat, especially among coveted business passengers.

While it’s not clear why demand for premium products and experiences has grown so rapidly, figures on wealth offer one explanation, according to Southwest CEO Robert Jordan, who was quoted in the Fast Company article. The top one-fifth of U.S. households by income have added $35 trillion in wealth since 2019 and holds nearly nine times the wealth of the middle fifth, per Federal Reserve data. Which gives the wealthiest households plenty of money to spend on premium travel.

On the other hand, more crowded planes post-pandemic might also be pushing passengers to spend more to escape a middle seat in the back of the plane.

Whatever the reasons, executives from Delta say they expect sales of premium tickets to surpass the airline’s revenue from main-cabin tickets by 2027. And while Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian says he doesn’t see the “low-end carriers” segment ever disappearing, he also says that upscale moves by ultra-low-cost carriers are having no effect on his airline.

Even though Delta mainly targets upscale travelers, the airline also introduced basic-economy fares a decade ago when discounters emerged as a growing threat to poach some of Delta’s customers.

Which could just show how circular these sorts of patterns really are.

Brand idea for Frontier Airlines: ‘A value however you fly.’

Frontier Airlines could lean into these trends through, for example, “Airport Better Value Guides.” Web and social media content could provide information on the best dining, retail, ground transportation or hotel values in and around Frontier destination airports. Highlighted options could demonstrate a combination of competitive pricing and quality customer experiences. And show a willingness to look beyond obvious choices, to include independent or family-owned businesses, for example.