Are you beloved or just a fad?

In his book Lovemarks, Kevin Roberts makes powerful distinctions between commodities, solid brands, fads, and beloved companies.   For our purposes, I’ll simply focus on a difference between being “loved” and being a “fad.”  Faddish companies are not respected for their operational excellence, they merely enjoy the titillation of infatuation.  Such was the plight of Pop-Tarts World which is scheduled to close on Dec. 31.

In case you blinked and missed the rise and fall of Pop-Tarts World, it was a Manhattan themed store built around the enduring breakfast pastry of the same name.  The three-story retail operation opened to much hoopla as food aficionados blogged about such delights as the Pop-Tarts Sushi but novelty and oddity should not be confused with sustainability.

The failure of Pop-Tarts Wold proves that 2 billion Pop-Tarts consumed annually doesn’t necessarily translate into a retail experience.  Pop-Tarts didn’t predispose New York tourists to spend $20 on a Pop-Tarts T-Shirt or $12 in the Varietizer vending machine where they could choose their flavors of six two-packs of Pop-Tarts.

Moral of the Story: A craveable product doesn’t necessarily a craveable experience make.

Are you building compelling experiences that go beyond faddish infatuation and anchor to a platform of operational excellence that produces belovedness?