In the summer of 2018, the breakfast enthusiasts were shaken when the International
House of Pancakes chain, better known as iHOP announced the name change to iHOb. This
acronym represented that the chain will now focusing primarily on hamburgers. Prior to this
name change, burgers were already part of the menu but given the name, not many turned their
heads for their ‘Ultimate Steakburgers’. iHOP has, to this day, a great variety of breakfast
options: pancakes, omelets, hash browns, bacon, etc. Although this is better known as breakfast
food, their 24-hour locations are home to nine of ten people that enjoy breakfast for dinner.
“Americans say they eat breakfast for dinner, with more than half (53 percent) of respondents
enjoying breakfast night dinners once a month or more, and nearly a quarter eating breakfast for
dinner once a week. (Cision)” This on its own is a reason as to why their dinner menu wasn’t
getting as much attentions as the chain wanted.
The iHOb campaign was originally launched after 10 quarters of constant traffic decline.
This could be in relation to competitors like Denny’s, Waffle House, or other similar chain
restaurants or perhaps other environmental impacts. It can also be an internal competition
between their menu items like mention in the previous paragraph. This campaign wasn’t
necessarily a scream for help but a scheme to bring as much attention to their burgers as possible.
The initiative started off as a tweet announcing the flip of the letter on June 4th, 2018, and
then the internet broke as the people tried to guess what the ‘b’ could possible stand for. After
days of teasing and joking, on July 11th, 2018, they released advertisement confessing that the ‘b’
stood for burgers. The restaurants went as far as printing out menus with the new iHOb logo or
changing their well-known sign to avoid people thinking it was solely a publicity stunt. This
created even more of a fuzz around the change especially to those nonbelievers. It was one thing
for them to say they would change their name and another thing to do it. As they said it, “We
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flipped a letter and the world flipped.” After breaking the internet once, they proceeded to do it
again as other chain restaurants and well-known celebrities jumped onto the trend
After getting almost the entire world to talk about it, it was time to get them to also eat it.
To do this, the chain restaurant hosted something called a “VIb” party where several influencers,
celebrities and press were invited to try the new burgers in hopes that they liked them so much
that they would charge their thought with their following. The stunt seemed to work because
iHOb has generated “28,000 broadcast segments and press articles (droga5).” The numbers
proceeded to prove that this was one of their best advertisements to date as millions of tweets
and posts flooded the internet with about 42.5B impressions. The New York Times even called it
the “21st century marketing success story”. It was then reported that “IHOP same-store sales
grew by 1.2 percent during its third quarter, which ended Sept. 30.”
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Overall, the marketing worked perfectly, and the word was spread beyond measure. It it
safe to say that although iHOP is back to its original name, people know for a fact that they also
proudly distribute delicious steak burgers.
Work Cited
https://droga5.com/work/ihob/
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/07/ihops-fake-name-change-helped-it-sell-4-times-more-
burgers.html
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/breakfast-for-dinner-trend-continues-nine-out-of-10-
americans-enjoy-breakfast-night-300139076.html
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