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This week, Taylor Swift teased the release of her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, through a clip from today’s episode of New Heights, the podcast hosted by her boyfriend, NFL player Travis Kelce, and his brother, former NFL player Jason Kelce. When the clip went up, the internet erupted into a familiar frenzyone that weve come to know all too well. Whats interesting about this particular album announcement, however, is that for someone as famous as she is, Swift actually lays pretty low. The 35-year-old singer rarely agrees to interviews and shes reportedly never appeared on a video podcastuntil now. Though there are many strategies Swift uses to command our attention, from easter eggs to community building, one strategy in particular stands out with this album announcement. Swift touched on it in the last public interview she gave back in 2023, when Time magazine chose her as its Person of the Year. She says it all goes back to the 2009 VMAs, when she learned that record labels were trying to replace her after Kanye West interrupted her acceptance speech. Her response? I thought instead Id replace myself first with a new me, Swift says. Its harder to hit a moving target. That strategy led Swift to experiment with different kinds of music, bending genres and storytelling methods over the course of the past decade and a half. It also seems to underpin her promotional strategy for the Taylor Swift brand. When almost everything Swift does is so meticulously planned, slight changes feel like groundbreaking shifts. So when she decides to do something unexpected, like re-record her albums before buying them all back, like she did 12 weeks ago in May, or appear on a podcast, her audience is hooked. The excitement around this week’s announcement continued when Swift launched a curated Spotify playlist featuring 22 of her songs, starting with 22 off of her album Red, with a runtime of one hour and 22 minutes. Fans were quick to point out that each of the songs are produced by Max Martin and Shellback, hypothesizing the duo produced this upcoming project. Jack Antonoff, a co-producer and co-writer on Swifts past 11 releases, and whose wedding Swift attended last summer, appears to be missing from the credits. Fans expect Swift, like all artists, to release new music. But Swifts unexpected moves and manufactured guessing games seem key to how she continues to keep the world entranced. It’s not unlike the strategy that has consumers feverishly collect limited edition Stanley Cups and Labubus. As Inc.com columnist Bill Murphy wrote about Swifts strategy during her last album announcement, In short, never let the story end. When youve got your fans attention, always make sure to have something else to announce that they look forward to. By Ava Levinson This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
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E-Commerce
For years, some of the biggest airline companies in the U.S. have been increasingly relying on ancillary feeslike advanced seat assignments and carry-on bag coststo meet their bottom lines. Now, passengers are getting sick of it. On August 19, two separate lawsuits filed against Delta and United allege that both airlines have charged passengers an extra fee for window seats that didnt actually have windows. This class action seeks redress for Deltas intentional practice of charging passengers premium fees to obtain seats that Delta indicates have a window,’ but which are actually next to a blank wall, the Delta suit reads. The lawsuits come as airlines complicated ticketing processes have faced increased scrutiny for potentially using dark patterns to deceive customers and boost bottom lines. “Windowless” window seats The first lawsuit was filed against Delta by plaintiff Nicholas Meyer and his attorneys at the litigation firm Greenbaum Olbrantz, while the second suit against United was filed by two attorneys at the same firm. According to a report from The Washington Post, Meyer was flying to California on Delta Flight 826 in seat 23Fa spot hed paid extra to secure in order to sit next to a window. When he arrived at the flight, however, he found that his seat actually faced a bare wall. For many years, Delta has knowingly and routinely sold windowless ‘window’ seats to travelers, the suit reads. For instance, various models of Deltas Boeing 737, Boeing 757, and Airbus A321 aircraft are built with one or more seats that would traditionally have a window, but do not include one due to the placement of air conditioning ducts, electrical conduits, or other interior components. The document goes on to claim that Delta has likely sold over a million windowless window seats throughout the class period. The United suit flags the Boeing 737 and Airbus A321 as two aircrafts used by the company with the problem, providing the same estimate of over a million windowless seats sold. In an email to The Post, Meyers attorney, Casey Olbrantz, added, Many other airlines affirmatively disclose to consumers that the very same seats have no window view. United and Delta could easily do the same, but they conveniently omit this fact and accept substantial extra fees that consumers would not have otherwise paid. United declined Fast Companys request for comment on the lawsuit, and Delta did not respond by press time. A bigger problem The frustration over paying extra for an allegedly windowless window seat reflects a broader pattern among some of the largest players in the airline industry. According to a Senate report released late last year, between 2018 and 2023, the airlines American, Delta, United, Spirit, and Frontier netted $12.4 billion in revenue from ancillary fees like advanced seat assignments and carry-on bags. The report also posited that deceptive UX practices and dynamic pricing helped to drive up costs for passengers. Airline websites and mobile applications bury critical information, such as the cost of selecting a particular seat, at later stages of the booking process, the report alleged. At some airlines, proprietary algorithms use consumer data to help set the price of fees so that different people attempting to book the exact same flight at the exact same time may be charged different prices for checking a bag. Several airlines have abandoned elements of their unique branding to play into this game of additional add-ons: In 2024, Spirit Airlines moved further from its origins as a low-budget carrier by implementing a new seat class with extra add-ons, while Southwest scrapped its iconic bags fly free and open seating policies in favor of a tiered pricing system. And this July, Delta announced that it has begun using AI to institute dynamic pricing based on factors like seat availability, current news, weather conditions, and even fluctuating oil prices. The cumulative effect of these changes is that, over time, every airline is starting to behave similarlyand the passenger experience is suffering.
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E-Commerce
Apple announced Thursday that its hiking the price of a monthly subscription for its Apple TV+ streaming service by $3, to $12.99. This latest increase, the companys third in three years, means subscribers will now pay nearly double the amount to stream popular TV shows like Severance or The Studio as they did as recently as October 2023. Though Apple is moving in step with other streaming services that have similarly raised prices this year, its the first time the technology company has increased the rate for Apple TV+ since 2023. Unlike other streaming services, Apple TV+ doesnt have a lower-priced subscription tier thats supported by advertising, instead offering a one-price-for-all model that falls in the middle of the price tiers offered by both Netflix and Hulu. The new $12.99 rate is now in effect for new subscribers, following a free seven-day trial, while existing customers will see the price hike 30 days after their next renewal date. The cost of an annual subscription, currently $99, has not changed. APPLE STILL LAGS IN POPULARITY Apple may be banking that consumers will pay up, given the recent critical acclaim for its TV shows and popularity of its theatrical film F1: The Movie, starring Brad Pitt. Last month, Apple received a record-breaking 81 nominations for Primetime Emmy Awards, led by Severance with 27 nominations. But the Cupertino, California-based company is reportedly losing more than $1 billion annually on the streaming service, according to reporting earlier this year by The Information, and its marketing efforts have fallen flat. And while more than 80% of Americans use streaming services, according to a Pew Research Center survey released in July, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video continue to reign supreme. Apple TV+ ranked eighth in popularity, with only 25% of respondents saying they watch Apple TV+ programming. American households now spend an average of $69 per month on the cost of four paid streaming services combined, according to a report released by Deloitte in March. And consumers have become savvy about gaming the monthly subscription services to binge-watch shows they want to watch. Several people on Reddit noted that they routinely subscribe to Apple TV+ for a month or two before canceling and will continue to do so, even at the higher rate, while another noted that the size of the services catalog doesnt justify this new price.
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E-Commerce
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