In June, breakfast chain IHOP announced it would change its name to IHOB. This lead the public into a wild guessing game of what the “B” could possibly stand for. The most common guesses were Breakfast, Brunch, Bananas, and more.
Their twitter account is now @ihob, there are now billboards and store signage that say ‘’IHOB’, and the website now has the IHOB logo. However, their URL is still ihop.com.
Shortly thereafter, the company revealed the new name to be “International House of Burgers” and announced a rollout of new burger menu items.
This received controversy from fans and other fast food chains. Many were annoyed by their decision to replace the P’s in their tweets with B’s, and were not willing to make the verbal change from iHop to iHob.
IHOB’s competitors were quick to make fun of them on Twitter:
Not really afraid of the burgers from a place that decided pancakes were too hard.
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) June 11, 2018
As much as we love our pancakes, we'd never change our name to Whatapancake
— Whataburger® (@Whataburger) June 11, 2018
We've worked really hard for like 100 years to get people to remember our brand name so if it's cool with everyone we're just going to stick with MoonPie thank you
— MoonPie (@MoonPie) June 11, 2018
Ultimately, this rebrand was just a temporary marketing campaign to promote the new seven-burger lineup which includes “Cowboy BBQ” “Big Brunch” and “Mega Monster.” According to President Darren Rebelez, breakfast is still going to be the focal point of the restaurants, and that they wanted to generate buzz to get customers in at all hours of the day by generating hype for their lunch and dinner foods.
The one thing left on consumer’s minds: Why not use pancakes as the hamburger buns?
Was this campaign brilliant or foolish? Share your thoughts below!