15781: IHOP Grand Slam® Shitfest.

 

Advertising Age reported that IHOP has a new White advertising agency—Pereira O’Dell—and a not-so-new campaign. “Let’s Put a Smile on Your Plate”—which sounds like just about every tagline ever written for Mickey D’s or Coca-Cola—incorporates the pancake restaurant’s ‘smile’ logomark like Amazon and a reboot of “When You’re Smiling (the Whole World Smiles With You)” like countless other advertisers over the last century.

 

“We can’t just be on television, we’ve got to be on TikTok and on Hulu—we need to be where the guests are. Wherever people are making decisions about what they want to eat when they’re hungry, I want IHOP to show up there,” said IHOP’s chief marketing officer, probably imagining trending videos of dancing customers and waitstaff. “Making the cash register ring is all about being current, and looking at culture and what the business needs. That’s my job. My job is to make sure we get people into our restaurants.” Wow, that’s a breakthrough vision.

 

The Ad Age story revealed that the campaign was cooked up quickly under a tight deadline—like a sloppy Grand Slam^® Breakfast—and it shows. Oh, how it shows.

 

What’s next? Resurrect Aunt Jemima for IHOP—hey, she’s brand relevant and available.

 

IHOP Hires Pereira O’Dell, Debuts Smile-Focused Rebrand

 

Pancake and logo-inspired ‘Smile’ spots kick off creative partnership

 

By Jon Springer

 

IHOP today revealed Pereira O’Dell as its new creative agency, along with the shop’s first campaign for the chain, “Let’s Put a Smile on Your Plate.”

 

The campaign kicks off a rebranding effort that takes its inspiration from the restaurant chain’s “funny-face” pancakes while addressing brand-building opportunities revealed in a study of its restaurants, franchisees, customers and employees.

 

A 60-second “manifesto” spot opens with a scene from the IHOP kitchen as pancake batter is poured onto a gleaming griddle—a “behind the curtain” scene IHOP had rarely presented in its marketing, said Kieran Donahue, IHOP’s chief marketing officer.

 

The ad continues with moments “between the bites,” in the kitchen, the restaurant and in consumers’ homes. Tying it all together is a modern recording of “When You’re Smiling (the Whole World Smiles With You),” a song made famous almost a century ago by Louis Armstrong and recorded for the campaign by music partner Beacon Street Music. The only spoken words come when a voiceover at the end of the commercial recites the new tagline: “At IHOP, we don’t just put food on your plate. We put a smile on your plate.”

 

“We didn’t want to say too much,” said Rob Lambrechts, Pereira O’Dell's chief creative officer. “We wanted people to feel it.”

 

‘True north research’

 

Donahue, who joined IHOP in 2021 after a long career in the hospitality industry, has already done much to change the brand’s trajectory. She ordered deep research into the IHOP brand and its attributes, revealing that the chain had often failed to take credit for the reasons customers admired it, including its food quality and preparation standards, and its versatility as a gathering place for friends and family from breakfast to late night.

 

Despite a strong 2021, IHOP’s comparable sales still trail pre-pandemic levels.

 

The chain’s “true north research,” as Donahue called it, was presented to a range of creative advertising agencies during a review overseen by MediaLink that began in December. Incumbent creative partner Droga5, which had held the IHOP account for four years, chose not to defend. Pereira O’Dell won convincingly behind a single idea.

 

“I’ve done a lot of RFPs and been presented to by a lot of agencies, and this is the first time in my long career in marketing that I’ve been in a pitch where the final pitch had just one campaign. Not two—one,” Donahue said. “POD had such conviction in this campaign, and they were so right on. They hit the heart of everything that is IHOP, and they brought it to life.”

 

Pereira O’Dell executives said that a tight deadline loaned urgency to their work, while clarity from IHOP on what the brand was looking for gave it direction. IHOP’s brief was simple and clear: “How do you bring the recipe for joy to life?”

 

“We came in to win the pitch, but also win the pitch and produce the idea, because we knew what we had was right for them,” Natalie Nymark, president of Pereira O’Dell’s West region said. “We also knew we had very little time to get to market so we knew we had to be ready to go.”

 

Making the cash registers ring

 

Pereira O’Dell seized on the smile long used in the company’s logo—and placed onto its pancakes with whipped cream and chocolate chips—to highlight those elements that the brand had once taken for granted.

 

“The first time we got together with Kieran and her team she had a super clear vision of what the path forward was and that’s always inspiring for us. We knew the whole time it was about that smile, 100%,” said Lambrechts. “When you ask what is the end of a recipe for joy? It’s a smile. It’s food that makes you happy. And most of the time you go to IHOP, you’re with other people you love—your friends and family—and the interactions you have with them, and the IHOP staff, are usually happy. And when you put all that together the natural result is a smile.”

 

The campaign, which hits linear and OTT television beginning April 11, joins a newly launched loyalty rewards program intended to generate repeat business for the Dine Brands chain and attract new customers while playing off the crypto coin craze. Donahue, who is fond of saying the goal of marketing “is to make the cash registers ring,” noted the new spot—as well as the loyalty program dubbed the International Bank of Pancakes that figures in the ads—feature “cultural moments but also tactical ones.”

 

These efforts are helping 64-year-old IHOP chart a new growth plan intended to make the brand appear “wherever people are making decisions about what they want to eat when they’re hungry,” said Donahue.

 

The restaurant is broadening the places it looks to advertise as a response to the increasingly digital lives of its customers. “We can’t just be on television, we’ve got to be on TikTok and on Hulu—we need to be where the guests are. Wherever people are making decisions about what they want to eat when they’re hungry, I want IHOP to show up there,” she said. “Making the cash register ring is all about being current, and looking at culture and what the business needs. That’s my job. My job is to make sure we get people into our restaurants.”

 

The chain is making a “significant” increase in marketing spending this quarter, although Donahue declined to cite specific figures.

13964: IHOPathetic.

Adweek presented an IHOP commercial from a new campaign by Droga5 that features the tagline, “Pancakes Pancakes Pancakes”—and the spot is painful painful painful to watch. Didn’t the restaurant chain revise its name to IHOP in order to de-emphasize the pancakes and promote the broader menu? Whatever. There’s so much to hate about this work, from the script that feels like it was written by an intern to the unappetizing food photography to the comedy-killer visual of a plane crashing into the restaurant. Adweek reported the director behind Old Spice and DirecTV campaigns shot the pitiful pitiful pitiful commercial, which clearly demonstrates that A-level production vendors can’t save a bad concept.

Droga5’s Offbeat First Work for IHOP Is About Pancakes, Pancakes, Pancakes

Tom Kuntz directs :30 with single-minded airline pilots

By Tim Nudd

Droga5 brings some offbeat humor to the usually more buttoned-up IHOP in its first ad for the brand, directed by absurdist master Tom Kuntz, that features two airline pilots who can’t think of anything but pancakes.

The 30-second spot kicks off IHOP’s 60th year in business and focuses on the return of what IHOP says is its most requested promotion: All You Can Eat Pancakes for $3.99.

The ad marks a shift in tone for the Glendale, Calif.-based company, which had been using more traditional themes in its advertising, including everyday moments in its restaurants. A campaign from prior agency Campbell Ewald, tagged “Eat up every moment,” featured lots of food shots, comedic but still staid plots, and voiceovers from actor Jason Lee.

“IHOP is a brand that’s always got pancakes on the brain, and believes that everything would be better if it were all just about pancakes,” Scott Bell, executive creative director at Droga5, said in a statement about the new work. “Knowing this was the mind-set, our priority going into this new integrated campaign was to capture this simple truth with three words: Pancakes, Pancakes, Pancakes.”

The “Pancakes, Pancakes, Pancakes” campaign will include 15-second spots as well as digital and social advertising, featuring content on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter throughout the promotion, which runs from Jan. 2 to Feb. 11.

“The love people have for the IHOP brand, and especially for our pancakes, was the natural launching pad for our new advertising campaign and the basis for its rallying cry of ‘Pancakes Pancakes Pancakes,’” said Brad Haley, chief marketing officer at IHOP. “The Droga5 team has had a lot of fun with it, and we’re incredibly excited to see the campaign come to life across every channel.”

Droga5 won the IHOP business in November, beating 72andSunny in a review.

MZJ director Kuntz has worked on scores of wacky ad campaigns through the years, from Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” spot to DirecTV’s “Cable Effects.”

13277: IHOP, IPG, IDIOTS.

Advertising Age reported on the Corporate Cultural Collusion between IHOP and IPG, with the pancake seller swapping White advertising agencies within the White holding company network. “We thought about other agencies and other resources within IPG before we even thought about going outside of the system,” said IHOP Senior VP-Marketing Kirk Thompson. Yes, heaven forbid one might find something different and better from another White holding company. Guess the colorless, generic degradation of the industry makes all White advertising agencies look alike. The scenario is most outrageous because the account shifted to Campbell Ewald L.A., part of a franchise that recently lost clients as a result of racist rowdiness. Amazingly, Campbell Ewald L.A. has a minority division—sociedAD—to handle Latino marketing for IHOP. Hey, it is the International House Of Pancakes, although sociedAD will soon discover the true value of pancake crumbs.

IHOP Switches IPG Agencies, Hires Campbell Ewald L.A.

After Four Years With Dailey, Pancake Chain Aims to Move ‘at Warp Speed’

By Jessica Wohl

IHOP is hungry for another Interpublic Group agency’s creative approach.

The pancake chain has picked Campbell Ewald L.A. as its new creative agency, replacing Dailey L.A. after a four-year run.

“Those years with Dailey took our work very far forward. It was time to build on that success and pause and think about what’s the best way to take it onto the next level,” Kirk Thompson, senior VP-Marketing, IHOP Restaurants, said in an interview. “We needed to do everything we were doing well at warp speed.”

The change comes after a multi-agency review that took place entirely within IPG, Mr. Thompson said.

“We thought about other agencies and other resources within IPG before we even thought about going outside of the system,” he said, adding that the 58-year old chain wants to build on what it has been doing.

For IHOP, breakfast competition has been heating up. Denny’s, for example, just came out with a new pancake recipe, while McDonald’s has been selling breakfast throughout the day since October. At the same time, potential patrons are being more influenced than ever with messages across TV, print, radio, digital and social.

IHOP has changed agencies a number of times in recent years. It worked with IPG’s McCann L.A. from 2002 through 2007, MDC Partners’ Vitro from 2007 to 2010, then returned to McCann L.A. from 2010 to 2012 before working with Dailey from 2012 until this switch.

IHOP is currently advertising its line of “Paradise Pancakes” for the summer. It has also been promoting itself as the home of Breakfast All Day.

Campbell Ewald’s first work on the brand should break in late September and is expected to include a new tagline, which Mr. Thompson declined to share. IHOP’s new work will also include Hispanic advertising led by sociedAD, part of Campbell Ewald.

“Many of us on the Campbell Ewald team have cherished memories of eating at IHOP with our families and friends and we’re thrilled to bring this overwhelming love that guests and fans have for the iconic brand to life through the creative,” Campbell Ewald CEO Kevin Wertz said in a statement provided by IHOP.

IHOP will continue to work with other IPG agencies as well, MRM/McMCann on digital and social and BPN on media strategy and planning.

10331: LifeLock, IHOP Hop Between IPG Shops.

Adweek reported on a minor case of Corporate Cultural Collusion involving accounts transferring between IPG shops sans review. Is it embarrassing for a client when their AOR folds, and they get shuttled to another agency? Of course, it’s not like anyone would view IHOP or LifeLock as showcase clients. And McCann is not exactly a creative powerhouse—it’s closer to an outhouse.

McCann L.A. IHOP, LifeLock Accounts Move to Dailey

Resulting layoffs undetermined

By Noreen O’Leary

IHOP and LifeLock, the remaining accounts at McCann Erickson’s Los Angeles office, have moved over to Interpublic corporate sibling Dailey L.A.

McCann, nonetheless, plans to keep the West Coast location open as a global field office. There were fewer than 50 staffers this spring before the agency lost its Nestlé brands Coffee-Mate and Nesquik in the U.S. Layoffs at the office are still to be determined as some of the McCann employees will move with the accounts to Dailey, sources said.

McCann declined to comment; Dailey execs did not respond to Adweek inquiries.

In 2011, IHOP spent $69.7 million in measured media and LifeLock, $57.8 million, according to Nielsen. Those amounts do not include digital or business-to-business ad spending.

IHOP, which worked with McCann from 2002-2007, returned to the agency in June 2010 after a two-year hiatus when the national restaurant chain worked with MDC Partners’ Vitro. LifeLock hired McCann in April 2010.

In addition to the loss of the Nestlé brands, the shift of business to Dailey comes after the resignation of Cathy Saidiner, president of McCann L.A. Richard Donohoe, group director at McCann N.Y., was named managing director of the L.A. office, replacing Saidiner.

Separately, McCann confirmed Matt Donovan, evp and managing partner of its N.Y. office since October 2010, has left the agency. While sources say he has a new job in the works it could not immediately be determined where he is headed. Donovan joined McCann in October 2010 from Euro RSCG 4D, where he was North American chief strategy officer. Donovan was hired by Thom Gruhler, who was then president of McCann N.Y. A year later Gruhler was moved into a McCann Worldgroup telecommunications role and left the company in March to become vp of Windows phone marketing at Microsoft.

9764: BHM 2012—IHOP.

Is IHOP celebrating Black History Month with a special on chicken and waffles?

9041: The Fatastic Four.

Media sources spotlighted four calorie-busters that make Ronald McDonald look like Jamie Oliver. And the winners are:


Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt
(1,260 calories; 21 g saturated fat; 3,010 mg sodium)


Cheesecake Factory’s Farmhouse Burger
(1,530 calories; 36 g saturated fat; 3,210 mg sodium)


IHOP Monster Bacon ‘N Beef Cheeseburger
(1,250 calories; 42 g saturated fat; 1,590 mg sodium)


Applebee’s Provolone-Stuffed Meatballs With Fettuccini
(1,520 calories; 43 g saturated fat; 3,700 mg sodium)

8770: IHOP Divorced From Reality.

What’s more pathetic than proposing in an IHOP? Being excited about the restaurant’s cheesy omelets. And what’s more pathetic than that? Turning it all into a commercial.

8702: “It’s Soul Food Without The Soul.”

The New York Daily News reported on something MultiCultClassics noted too.

Harlem chef Carl Redding plans protest of IHOP over soul food dish chicken and waffles

By David Hinckley, Daily News Staff Writer

The food fight is on over the honor of chicken and waffles, a dish cooked up for midnight ramblers in Harlem and now considered one of uptown’s culinary signatures.

Carl Redding, a chef who was raised and trained in Harlem and ran Amy Ruth’s restaurant before opening Redding’s in Atlantic City, says International House of Pancakes has taken chicken and waffles and butchered it.

“It’s soul food without the soul,” says Redding, who has traveled to South Africa with Oprah Winfrey and appeared on the “Today” show and “Conan.”

“It’s nothing like the way we know it in our community. If you’re going to appropriate a dish we treasure, at least get it right.”

Patrick Lenow, IHOP’s executive director of corporate communications, says that, with all due respect, IHOP has.

“We know there’s a lot of history to this dish,” he says, “and it’s terrific that Chef Redding has his way of doing it. But this is what IHOP is good at - taking something and putting a new twist on it. We did tests for how our customers would like it and the way we serve it is what they told us.”

The IHOP version of chicken and waffles is fried white-meat chicken tenders served with a Belgian waffle.

Redding’s version offers fried, grilled or smothered chicken, with both white and dark meat. He also uses the Belgian waffle, but he says his is more flavorful.

“Theirs is like a brick,” Redding says. “It should be light and fluffy.”

He says he learned to make chicken and waffles where most food historians agree it was created 60-plus years ago, at the now-departed Wells Restaurant on Seventh Ave. between 132nd and 133rd Sts.

“When I worked for the Rev. Sharpton, he used to meet Betty Shabazz [Malcolm X’s widow] there,” says Redding. “They’d meet and I’d sit by myself just luxuriating in the chicken and waffles. It’s something everyone uptown knows and likes.”

Wells reportedly developed the dish for its late-night crowd, “when it was too late for dinner and too early for breakfast.”

IHOP is offering chicken and waffles on a limited run through May 1. The dish could return if it does well, which Lenow says it has.

“I would respectfully suggest we have chefs and owners who prepare and serve it with love,” he says. “And with soul.”

Lenow also suggests that because IHOP has more than 1,500 locations, it can introduce more people to chicken and waffles, “and maybe some of them will make their way to Redding’s.”

“Next time I’m in Atlantic City, I’d like to go there myself,” he added.

Redding replied, “Tell him anytime.” But meanwhile, the chef will take to the street today for an edible demonstration of his point.

He’ll set up at noon in front of the IHOP on Black Horse Pike in Mays Landing, N.J., to cook and hand out free portions of chicken and waffles, Redding’s-style.

Redding stresses, by the way, that IHOP doesn’t normally ruffle his feathers. “I eat there,” he says. “I love their T-bone steak with pancake breakfast.”

He just thinks IHOP missed here — and tarnished an icon.

8608: International Crime…?

IHOP Chicken & Waffles? Hey, it’s just like Roscoe’s—except with far less authenticity, taste and sanitary standards.

8303: Pancake Breakfast After Church…?

From The Los Angeles Times…

IHOP drops suit against church over use of IHOP acronym

The pancake restaurant chain cites ongoing mediation with the International House of Prayer, which uses the IHOP letters in its website names, signs and events.

By Bill Kisliuk, Los Angeles Times

Could pancake peace be at hand?

The International House of Pancakes has dropped its trademark infringement lawsuit against a church, agreeing to resolve its dispute with the International House of Prayer out of court.

On Dec. 21, the restaurant chain dismissed its case against the church, with its lawyers citing “ongoing mediation with the defendants,” according to documents filed in federal court in Los Angeles.

The restaurant chain sued the church in September, alleging it misappropriated IHOP trademarks with its website, ihop.org, and in signs and events at its headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., and California ministries. The church also has affiliates in San Jose, Santa Maria, Calif., and Dublin, Calif.

When the lawsuit was filed, restaurant spokesman Patrick Lenow said the church’s use of IHOP and related phrases confused customers, undermined trademarked uses and risked publicly linking the chain of 1,500 restaurants with a particular faith or church.

He said the International House of Prayer had refused several requests to stop before the case was filed.

The church never filed a response in court. The main church Web page is still at ihop.org, and the Pasadena ministry’s website remains pihop.com.

On Tuesday, a church official in Kansas City said most staff members were at a religious gathering and no one was available for comment on the case. Calls to the Pasadena International House of Prayer were not returned.

Lenow, a spokesman with IHOP parent company DineEquity Inc., declined to discuss the company’s expected remedies for the six claims of trademark infringement, or a timeline, for the matter to be resolved.

“We have agreed with House of Prayer not to publicly discuss the case,” Lenow said in an e-mail.