The International House of BURGERS
Everyone knows and loves IHOP, the International
House of Pancakes. This American food chain has been around since the 50’s and
has been iconic for serving up some hot pancakes and your favorite breakfast foods
24/7. But that was the problem… open all day but only known for breakfast… what
about lunch and dinner? This was by no surprise a continuing problem for IHOP,
even though they have a well-diversified lunch and dinner menu ranging from sandwiches
and burgers to steak tips and tilapia nobody would really ever go to IHOP for a
decent lunch or dinner. But back in the summer 2018 IHOP decided to “flip”
things up with this week’s most iconic advertising campaign IHOb.
IHOP needed
to find a way to get consumer in the door not just for breakfast but beyond
that for all hours of the day. In times past the company tried to highlight
some of their lunch and dinner items but it never really changed the perception
of the house of pancakes and breakfast. IHOP hired the New York based agency Drogo5 for some serious help on how to save the
chain from this downhill spiral of failure… and they sure as hell didn’t disappoint.
Drogo5 accomplished in one year what the IHOP has been trying to do for years… have
Americans not just coming in to for lunch and dinner. Drago5 made it look easy with just a simple flip
of the “P” to a “b” and by b we mean burger, that’s right, The International
House of Pancakes burgers. They had to prove that IHOP took their burgers as seriously
as they took their pancakes.
It all started
with a simple tweet on June 4th, 2018 by IHOP stating that after 60
years, they are “flipping” their name to IHOb. (Lowercase b of course by flipping
the P.) They started the conversation by waiting to reveal what the b actual
stood for and made the nation actually flip out. The internet and social media
had a field day with this one, people everywhere were trying to guess what IHOP
was up to and guessing this b could possibly stand for. Some guessed breakfast,
other biscuits, or bacon and even brunch. Some were mad others confused, but
all were curious and anxiously waiting for June 11th to solve this madness.
The International House of BURGERS. Overnight IHOP had officially flipped every “P” to a “b” from their digital presence in social media handles, the website, and even to the smallest detail of the employees handles and titles. But also, within their physical restaurants around America, the
menus, neon signs, coffee mugs, and don’t forget the syrup caddies. They were not beefing around. Once again America freaked out and could not stop talking about it. Everyone from celebrities form Crissy Teagan, Gigi Hadid, to Diplo and other major food chains like Burger King, Wendy’s, Waffle House, and White Castle and others not even in the industry like Netflix and Philly Mag were tweeting about it… both good and ehh not so great opinions on the flip, but that’s the point.
But let’s
talk about their actual Steak Burgers that caused all this ruckus. People were
very skeptical to try the House of Pancakes Burgers new featured items. They
were worried that IHOb couldn’t be great at both pancakes and these burgers. They
were promoting that their burgers were 100% USDA choice beef, all natural, and
black angus beef all of these are ideal for the perfect burger. IHOb was
promoting their seven-burger lineup that include the Cowboy, Big Brunch Burger,
and The Double-Decker Mega Monster Burger along with others. And by many surprises,
the burgers were actually pretty good, all the burgers were filled with flavor
and a variety of toppings.
The Success
of the iconic IHOb campaign? Groundbreaking for the company, and a publicity dream
for others. IHOb received over $113 Million worth of earned media… this is huge
and almost unheard of in advertising. This was due to over 28,000 news stories
about the flip, 1.2 million social media mentions just within the first 10 DAYS,
and 42.5 billion impressions. People couldn’t stop talking about it, the word of
mouth score increased by 4.1 and was on the top ten list of improvers according
to YouGov. But the sales spoke for themselves, burger sales grew 4x year over
year for lunch and dinner while not taking away from their breakfast business. And
now since changing back to IHOP the lunch and dinner sales remain steady today.
My favorite thing about this memorable campaign is the pure strategy and creativity. Darren Rebelez, CEO of IHOP, told the press "If you're going to grow your business, you have to take it from somebody else," he said. "Somebody else out there lost a burger sale." Drogo5 recognized the financial and social issues that IHOP was having and by a flip of a P revived their whole business. This campaign gained a tremendous amount of heat and controversy saying IHOP was misleading and dishonest by news sources and other competitors, but those reviews only fueled the fire. Drogo5 probably knew before hand that this was going to raise some concerns, but the results were far more successful than any negative reviews. Hey, any publicity is good publicity am I right?
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