Case Study
Where’s the beef?
Finding new opportunities to expand share of mind and share of wallet.
The Challenge
Making IHOP a top choice for more than just the breakfast crowd.
IHOP, home of iconic breakfasts, needed to prove they take burgers as seriously as they do pancakes by raising awareness of its dinner offerings. The company wanted to know what it would take to entice the lunch and dinnertime crowd, and how they could leverage this understanding to capture hearts (and stomachs) at all hours.
OUR Impact
An unforgettable ad campaign with lasting impact on diners’ perceptions.
Our consumer research pointed to crave-able burgers as the best way to make IHOP a more relevant lunch and dinner option. Their team developed a new line of Ultimate Steakburgers, which outperformed their original burgers in taste and desirability. And the rest is history.
The new menu items were the catalyst of the now-infamous IHOb campaign. The meaning of IHOP’s mysterious “rebrand” dominated online conversation, garnering 42.5 billion media impressions, 28,000+ media stories, and $113 million in earned media. The campaign was also honored with a triple win at the 2019 David Ogilvy Awards, including the Advertising Research Foundation’s prestigious Grand Ogilvy award. IHOP burger sales quadrupled and non-breakfast traffic surged as a result of the campaign. Our brand tracker showed perceptions that IHOP “has great burgers” grew significantly, and hadn’t faded even nine months later.
