In what has to be one of the more (arguably) successful intentional PR stunts in recent times, IHOP (formerly known as International House of Pancakes) pranked the entire internet by announcing that they were flipping the P in their name to a b. At first it was unclear what the ‘B’ was supposed to stand for, breakfast? Burritos? Bacon? Bitcoin? Breakdancing…?
Not content with just internet trolling everyone, IHOb also doubled down on the stunt and changed signage at several of their IRL restaurants.
After a week of internet speculation, and ‘B’ related banter, the chain revealed that it was in fact B for Burgers, along with (sort of) announcing that it was a stunt, with a spokeswoman saying that the change is not permanent, but rather a move to promote their new burger line.
Soooo… why?
Obviously, with a name like ‘International House of Pancakes’, they’re kind of synonymous with… well, pancakes. But as stagnant sales forced the company to close 23 chains in 2017, with plans to close 30-40 more this year, the move is an attempt to get more people in ‘after 11am’.
IHOb CMO Brad Haley is quoted in USA Today saying “The big opportunity for the IHOb brand is to develop our lunch and dinner business,” and “Burgers are the most consumed entree item for men, women and children in America,” he continued, adding that “it made sense to start with burgers.”
The name change comes with a brand new range of 7 ‘re-burgered’ burgers, which look pretty good in pictures, but how well will this burger ‘brank’ work to bring in new customers outside of breakfast time…? Well if you base it on what Twitter users think (not usually a good idea), you’d be right to think IHOb had murdered someone’s mum – with user reaction ranging from ‘This is a joke right?’ to ‘I am boycotting everything you do forever more’ and/or ‘Fire your marketing person!’
HOWEVER
As the old adage goes, no publicity is bad publicity (or is that bublicity?), and in an epic reminder of how quickly things can spread in internet land – by the time IHOb revealed the burgery truth, the original video had been viewed over 6 million times, and had thousands of shares.
So while pancake lovers were struggling to get their head around a new burger reality, IHOb’s brand was omnipresent online, with Twitter banter and memes clogging up timelines as fast as algorithms could calculate – including this fiery zinger from OG burger joint Wendy’s:
Wendy’s IHOP Twitter Burn
BR for the win
Although the outcome of this meaty stunt on IHOb’s sales outside of the breakfast rush is somewhat undecided at this point, we can be sure of one thing – In a digitally connected world, PR (sorry BR) stunts are still an excellent brand booster. Surprise, and (in this case mostly) indignation sells, and a good outrage can reach millions as quickly as Santa on Christmas Eve.
Well done IHOb, good luck with the burgers…
I’m off for some bancakes.