If you’ve spent more than five minutes in New Orleans during King Cake season, you already know this truth:

People do not simply buy a king cake. They pledge allegiance.

🥇 Team Manny Randazzo.
🥇 Team Dong Phuong.
🥇 Team Haydel’s.
🥇 Team Antoine’s.
🥇 Team Walmart…? (Just kidding! 🤮)

It gets intense. Weirdly intense. And honestly? It’s one of the clearest real-world examples of brand loyalty you’ll ever see.

And no, it has very little to do with cake.

Brand loyalty is about belonging, not options

King Cake season works because people want to be part of something. It’s tradition, identity, nostalgia, and community wrapped in purple, green, and gold sugar.

When someone says, “We always get ours from the same place,” that’s not a casual preference. That’s a statement of belonging.

Strong brands do this, too. They don’t just sell a product. They give people a reason to feel like they belong to a group that gets it.

If your brand feels interchangeable, loyalty is always going to be fragile.

Commitment makes loyalty stronger, not weaker

King cakes are not cheap. And yet, every year, people happily line up, pre-order weeks in advance, and defend their choice like it’s a personality trait.

Why? Because commitment reinforces loyalty.

When customers invest real money, time, or effort into a brand and the experience delivers, it actually deepens trust. They’re not “trying something.” They’re choosing something they believe will be worth it.

Discount-driven brands skip this step and then wonder why no one sticks around when the sale ends.

Consistency is what keeps the hype alive

Here’s the quiet truth: Hype does not survive inconsistency.

People come back year after year because the experience matches the expectation every single time. Same quality. Same flavor. Same feeling.

That is not flashy work. It’s repetitive work. And it’s exactly what builds loyalty that lasts.

One great launch won’t save you if the follow-through falls apart by February.

The uncomfortable business question

So here’s the question worth asking while you’re scraping green sugar off your desk:

Are you giving customers a reason to commit, or are you asking them to choose you without making it feel worth it?

Because real loyalty isn’t created by clever marketing alone. It’s earned by doing the basics well, consistently, until people stop shopping and start swearing allegiance.

Now, let’s settle the important debate.

Filled or traditional? And where are you buying yours? Let us know.