PPH/Times Record interviews Percival Carter about L.L. Bean Freeport renovation

The Portland Press Herald/Times Record spoke to Erin Percival Carter, assistant professor of marketing at the Maine Business School, about L.L. Bean’s Freeport store and campus undergoing a $50 million makeover. Percival Carter said that proposed changes make sense for a company that has long used the promise of outdoor experiences to cultivate enduring relationships with its customers. “If L.L. Bean can convince those people who are coming to Maine on vacation to experience ‘The Way Life Should Be’ to stop at the L.L. Bean store and have an experience there and pick up a hat or some gloves or whatever they’re going to use for the rest of their vacation in Maine, they form this really special connection. Probably when they go home and find themselves thinking, ‘I need a flannel,’ they think of L.L. Bean, and they smile and remember that vacation,” Percival Carter said.