Why can't we all be like poptarts?

The other day, while meandering through the streets of New York, I stumbled across one of the newest-old fads in for-profit pr and marketing - the pop up store. For those of you not totally abreast of the various fads that permeate (or plague) the world of marketing, pop-up stores are like the gypsy carnivals of the retail world. They're stores that suddenly appear where once there was nothing, they're over the top, over-priced, and are gone the next day (before you have a chance to return the overpriced crap they convinced you to buy in a moment of impulse buying ecstasy). Normally these pop up stores are reserved for the fashion and are designed to create a feel of exclusivity but I found one that was decidedly not high fashion and not exclusive.



Yes, a pop up store dedicated to those sugary sweet pseudo-breakfast treats we (or at least I) grew up loving known as Poptarts.

Inside the store you could get a variety of hard to find Poptarts as well as make your own Poptart shirts, get specially made poptart desserts, and immerse yourself in poptart lore.



While I have to admit that my fondness of poptarts started to wane once I realized that my attractiveness was inversely proportional to my daily intake of poptarts (each 'tart' is like 300 calories!), I do admit that I actually like the store. It was bright and colorful and really immersed the visitors into the world of poptarts.

So, I began thinking: why don't non-profits do stuff like this? Why can't we create experiences that immerse people in our cause? Then it donned on me. We do! The only problem is that they suck. They suck like a hoover strapped to a black hole. The non-profit version of these pop-up stores is the pop-up tent, just like the one I saw later that day in Union Square:





This was an event put on through the Office of Emergency Management and the ASPCA to get people to register their pets and have a plan in case of emergencies. As a dog owner, I'm a big sucker for these types of things but I literally had to go out of my way to find someone and ask them "what's this all about?" to get any information at all. These tents and handout days are the go-to marketing/pr vehicle for so many nonprofit initiatives because they're cheap and easy, but the hard and fast truth is that you get what you pay for. Most of the time these are a total waste because they're boring for the people running them and boring for the people who happen to stop by. I'd bet my hat that they would get the same results by just having someone stand on the street and hand out fliers (since their metrics for success are almost always the number of fliers handed out) and that they'd get a much bigger bang for their buck by putting more money into the event, getting a space, and creating an experience.

Organizations need to ask themselves, "what am i really getting out of this?" I think if they asked themselves that, they would realize that they are often getting virtually nothing out of these half-assed events and either 1) more money should be spent, metrics for success should be made, and more excitement needs to be inserted into these events or 2) they don't need to waste time and money on this and a different vehicle should be used.

I mean really, if you can make an engaging store around poptarts (which people like but don't really care about) imagine what you could do with people and their pets?