IHOP Flips to IHOb

On June 4, 2018, IHOP tweeted: 'For 60 years, we've been IHOP. Now, we're flippin' our name to IHOb. Find out what it could b on 6.11.18.' They physically changed the 'P' to a 'b' on their signage. The internet went into a collective frenzy. Every major fast food brand on Twitter responded: Burger King changed their name to 'Pancake King.' Wendy's said 'Not really afraid of the burgers from a place that decided pancakes were too hard.' McDonald's shared an old tweet where they'd beaten IHOb to the burger business in 1954. The collective response from competitors amplified the stunt beyond anything IHOP could have engineered on their own. On June 11, they revealed it was IHOb for 'burgers.' Nobody cared. Everybody was already talking.

The mystery was the mechanism. By announcing a name change but withholding the reason, IHOP created a week-long anticipation game that every brand on social media played. The competitor responses were unpaid, uncontrolled amplification. The 'b' reveal was almost irrelevant — the conversation was already happening.

43x more social mentions than their previous burger campaign. 1.8 billion media impressions. Burger sales tripled in the weeks following. Became a Harvard Business School case study on earned media and brand stunts.