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IHOP: MARKETING
CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT
The International House of Pancakes, more commonly known as IHOP has been one of

the leading breakfast destination since its opening in 1958. IHOP are franchised and operated

by Glendale, California based International House of Pancakes, LLC and its affiliates. The

International House of Pancakes, founded by Al and Jerry Lapin first opened its doors in the

sub-urban areas of Los Angeles and fifty years later, a new marketing campaign introduced the

acronym “IHOP”. Since then, its been the name people know as the place they can enjoy their

favorite breakfast experience- any time of the day. Currently, there exists over 1650 restaurants

not only in the Unites States but also other countries such as Bahrain, Canada, UAE,

Philippines and many more. The famous family restaurant chain serves a wide variety of

breakfast food, most commonly pancakes, lunch and dinner items that pleases people of all

ages and offers an affordable, warm and friendly dining experience. Their wide variety of food

options have a special common ingredient; a smile.

PHILOSOPHY, VISION AND VALUES

The company’s philosophy aims to invite customers to be themselves and enjoy special

moments with family and friends. It believes that everyday life has enough rules, and sitting

down for a delicious and comforting meal shouldn’t have any. The restaurant has no official

rules but offers their customers a few suggestions to ensure a smile on their faces. Some of the

suggestive tag lines are ‘Come as you are’, ‘Savor every minute’, ‘Go with the flow’ and ‘Get it

anytime’, that stresses on their all day breakfast options that welcome breakfastarians with open

arms.

The company’s vision and values includes

Integrity: We do the right thing

Excellence: We bring our best to work

Innovation: We look for a better way

Accountability: We take impact personally

Inclusion: We invite, include and share

Trust: We foster trust

and Community: We give back.

PRODUCT, PRICE, PLACE AND PROMOTION STRATEGY

IHOP is open to customers 24x7, and 7 days a week. It aims to serve “Everything you love

about breakfast” at all times for breakfast lovers that they refer to as ‘breakfastarians’. They are

known for their signature and world famous pancakes but have introduced a lunch and dinner

menu to accommodate all kinds of customer dining needs. The restaurant offers a wide range of

food items ranging from eggs, pancakes, desserts and even steaks. They also aim to make the

dining experience very affordable, reasonable and value for money. The pricing strategy aims to

make their food affordable across income segments. The restaurant also has several breakfast

promotions and deals that offer attractive prices and hope to capture the customers for lunch

and dinner as well. The company began to expand through franchising in 1960 and had 500

successfully running restaurants within 34 years. Currently, the restaurant has over 1500

franchised chains that span not only across the 50 states of the country, but also across

countries such as UAE, Philippines, Canada and many more. IHOP believes that the shortest

distance between two people is a smile and aims to deliver just that. Through its 50 plus years,

it has introduced several promotions strategies that significantly boosted sales such such as
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‘Rooty Tooty Fresh N Fruity’, “Come Hungry, Leave Happy” campaign”, “International Pancake

Day” and the “Everything You Love about Breakfast” campaign. These popular campaigns and

marketing strategies aided to the continuous growth of the company. In addition, it also

introduced several advertisements, customer loyalty programs and promotions events to boost

sales and ensure returning of customers.

STRENGTHS

IHOP is a well known brand that has been in good business for over 56 years. The

company offers a warm, friendly, affordable and every day dining experience to a diverse range

of customers. The restaurant is open seven days a week, twenty-four hours every day and

offers a variety of food items ranging from pancakes to steaks. It caters to all meals of the day;

breakfast, lunch and dinner and serves them all day. It offered the concept of an all day

breakfast long before leading global chains such as Mcdonalds and Jack in the Box offered the

same. It has more than 1500 locations in well spaced and diverse neighborhoods.

Its signature world famous pancakes are well-renowned, the company brand recognition

and recall are well associated with pancakes and breakfast. Its affordability enables it to cater to

consumers across income segments and to people of all ages.

In addition, the company is also financially stable through its lasting revenues and profits

and employees over 30,000 employees every year. The existing distribution and sales network

that has been built over years also serve as an advantage for the growth of the company.

These strengths are marketed towards its advantage through several forms of

advertisements, campaigns, promotions and through social media. Few of its marketing

strategies have been described below.

WEAKNESS
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Several IHOP restaurants have been known to have a long wait time and customers

have complained about being seated after a long wait times. The company that strives on its

breakfast menu options, lacks variety in the lunch and dinner menu. The lunch and dinner

options aren’t as extensive as most other restaurants that offer lunch and dinner options. Even

though the company has a strong brand recall when associated with breakfast, it fails to do so

when compared to the brand recall of global fast food food chains.

The company has been able to expand because of its easy and convenient franchising

options, however franchise leads to the issue of maintaining quality control and consistency

through the restaurant chains. Customers have complained of inconsistent levels of food taste

and quality across different IHOPs across the state and country.

In recent times, the health and nutritional value of the IHOP food variety has also posed

a downfall. . IHOP pancakes and waffles have been known to be high calorie and unhealthy

food items. With an ever-growing increase and emphasis on healthy food options and lifestyle,

customers have resorted to healthier and less-calorie food options.

OPPORTUNITY

The company has huge opportunities to expand not just nationally, but globally. It has

the ability to become a global brand and introduce American diner food in several countries. In

recent years, American breakfast and meal options have been popular in Asian countries and a

further global expansion would allow IHOP to capture these markets.

The economic growth has led to higher levels of disposable incomes in families that

encourages more and more families to eat out instead of at home. The restaurant business is

therefore growing more significantly than ever and serves more and more customers on a daily

basis.
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The company has a vast scope of expanding its lunch and dinner options to provide a

vast variety of food options for all meals during the day. In order to combat its weakness of high

calorie food options, it could also introduce a calorie count on their menus menu and healthy

meal options.

THREATS AND COMPETITONS

One of the major threats that the company faces is the availability of substitutes. This threat

is posed by both small and large companies. Small local business provides more nutritious

breakfast and warmer service options whereas there has been a drastic increase in all day

breakfast options from leading global food chains such as McDonald’s and Jack in the Box at

low prices. The growing inflation and rise in food prices makes its difficult for IHOP to maintain

and compete with low prices.

There also exist other competitors such as Denny’s, Waffle House and Perkins that offer

a similar dining experience and similar prices.

The rising rates of labour costs, raw materials, taxes etc. also pose a threat to the

company.

MARKETING CAMPAIGNS LAUNCHED BY IHOP

marketing program in 1973. The Rooty Tooty Fresh N Fruity was soon introduced and

customers from all over the country enjoyed pronouncing the ‘one-of-a-kind’ breakfast. The

company then aired several commercials, starring Cliff Bemis from the mid-80s through the mid-

90s. By 1993, average sales per restaurant exceeded 1 million dollars and system wide sales
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soon exceeded 1 billion dollars. IHOP soon began trading on the New York Stock Exchange

under the symbol “IHP”.

“COME HUNGRY. LEAVE HAPPY”

In 2003, IHOP launched its award-winning “Come Hungry. Leave happy” advertising campaign.

This campaign introduced their famous stuffed French toasts and all you can eat pancakes with

any breakfast option on the menu. In 2004, this campaign also won the Advertising and

Marketing Awareness Award for this campaign. This marketing strategy attracted several

customers and boosted sales significantly.

Soon after, IHOP introduced the funnel cake as a limited time offer. This food item

quickly gained popularity and is now commonly available in the country’s most famous

amusement parks. After the soaring success of the ‘limitied time offer’, IHOP soon introduced

funnel cake as a regular item on their menu.

In 2006, IHOP made the largest menu change ever in 50 years and launched the gift

cards program to drive sales with plans to optimize gift card sales.

In 2007, the company acquired Applebee’s International Inc. It now had over 3300

restaurants that brought together two leading brands, creating the largest full-service restaurant

company.

In 2008, it celebrated its 50 years and made few changes to the dining experience. The interior

décor was made more befitting an American icon; uniforms, silverware, glassware etc were

made more contemporary. It aimed to preserve the IHOP heritage while make it more

contemporary and 21st century. It added the iconic A frame and extended this brand association

to Applebee’s as well.
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NATIONAL PANCAKE DAY

The national pancake day promotion began in 2005 and is still celebrated every year. IHOP

offers free pancakes to all its customers on the day. The widespread popularity of this campaign

has led to the celebration of National Pancakes Day to be synonymous with free pancakes at

IHOP. This campaign also serves their social responsibility aspect as the day serves as a one-

day event to benefit children’s hospitals. In 2011, it raised 8 million dollars to support the

communities it does business with. The company celebrated its 10th annual national pancake

date in 2015 and raised a record breaking 3.5 million dollars, totaling the entire charity event to

20 million dollars.

Additionally, in order to give back to the community, IHOP also supports organizations

such as United Way, Toys for Tots etc. It also aims to give back to the environment by using low

energy machines, recycling, implementing the green initiative and many others.

SIMPLE AND FIT MENU

To meet the growing demand for low calorie food options by the increasing health

conscious customers, IHOP introduced the simple and fit menu that serves nutritious food that

are under 600 calories. The launch of this menu increased their sales which had been relatively

stagnant and decreasing.

MAKE IT AN IHOP DAY

In 2011, IHOP introduced a new, integrated national advertising and marketing

campaign with the tag line “Make it an IHOP day”. It featured new media ads to lure customers

to breakfast-inspired signature dishes. The campaign was a evolution of the award winning

campaign ‘Come Hungry. Leave Happy’. Consumer research had indicated that the new

campaign provided an opportunity to engage guests and foster emotional connections with the
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iconic brand. The company utilized its branch name and value and succeeded in making guests

visit more often. The campaign was advertised nationally but were also tailored for local markets

and were spread through radio, signs etc.

EVERYTHING YOU LOVE ABOUT BREAKFAST

In 2012, it launched the ‘Everything You Love About Breakfast” campaign. The series of

advertisements included the first brand anthem TV spot and several guest testimonials.

SMS MARKETING

In 2013, IHOP introduced its SMS marketing that aimed to build brand loyalty and attract traffic

into a restaurant during slow days of the week. The marketing strategy involved encouraging

customers to opt in for IHOP coupons via SMS. This also aimed to build a SMS text list for

future marketing campaigns. The coupon received on a mobile phone could be redeemed for a

short stack of pancakes. The strategy involved several methods of advertising such as print ads,

radio ads, direct mail etc. The coupon offers targeted customers in mid-week when traffic was

significantly lower.

The promotion increased sales by 10% during dead hours and also resulted in several

‘upsells’ since consumers that redeemed a coupon would end up purchasing breakfast for their

entire family.

IHOP: A GLOBAL COMPANY

By 2014, IHOP launched more than 70 locations outside the United States in Bahrain, Canada,

Dubai, Guatemala, Kuwait, Mexico, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia and the US

Virgin Islands. It recognized the demand for American food, specifically American Breakfast
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foods in these countries and successfully launched restaurants that were accompanied by

culturally appropriate advertisements and promotional strategies in the respective countries. In

most Asian countries, IHOP came to agreements with local existing companies to launch the

American brand in the countries. For example, it entered into franchise relations with InterDine

Corp in the Philippines. The unique IHOP experience was successfully introduced to different

cultures around the world

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A MEANS FOR MARKETING

Social Media plays an extremely important means of marketing in todays world and IHOP was

successfully able to launch several campaigns through various social media forums. Like all

other company, IHOP had to introduce a digital marketing strategy that promoted capturing,

sharing, commenting at any point. It aimed to stay in touch with people’s daily lives and give

constant reminders about the IHOP dining experience. One of the most popular mobile

campaigns launched encouraged people to send in photographs which were then replicated

onto pancakes. This pancake art campaign was an interactive experience that was thoroughly

shares and ‘liked’ on social media. IHOP also launched its range of live Facebook videos

“Paradise Pancakes”. IHOPs interaction on Facebook led to a 8.1 percent increase in sales and

established itself as a lifestyle brand. IHOP currently has over 3.5 million followers who connect,

share and review about the restaurant.

The company also uses Twitter as its number 1 social platform to stir new and innovative

conversations around IHOP. It attracts a customer fan base by using ‘hip new’ lines to advertise.

For example, a recent tweet that attracted several Twitter users included the caption ‘Pancakes

on fleek’ along with an image of the pancakes. It has also been known to use ‘bae; ‘slayin’ etc in

its recent tweets. It is able to reach out to the young fan base through such marketing strategies
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Social media is an important source of ‘word of mouth’ as customers share their stories and

experiences in several ways. IHOP considers social media as one of their main marketing

strategies and has an entire department that caters to its social media advertising.

BRAND+ LIFE CYCLE

IHOP is a 58-year-old brand that has been a part of people’s breakfast habits and special

moments for decades. It is a family brand that has been known for delighting guests with

delicious pancakes and innovative menu items since 1958. Their most recent brand strategy

was around the theme “Spreading Happiness Since 1958”. The brand positioning aimed to

associate the dining experience with a warm and friendly food experience that brings smiles to

everyone’s faces. The new logo is also designed with a smiley face at the bottom to enhance

the tag line. The company recognizes that in order to maintain its life in the food industry, it

needs to constantly innovate, improvise and unlock the vast possibilities that reside within the

IHOP brand.

TARGET MARKET

The company aims to target people of all ages in its marketing campaigns. It releases different

kinds of advertisements and campaigns that employ various methods to attract the attention of

people from all ages. The company aims to target breakfast lovers of all ages and from all

income groups. The different advertisements are tailored as per local norms and to different age

groups, geographical groups and lifestyle groups.

MARKET RESEARCH

RECOMMENDATION
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Research is done and plans are made at the corporate level however doesn’t trickle down well

to every franchise. Each franchise needs to have individual market researches as well that can

help them understand how that particular branch is perceived in the eyes of customers and how

it can retain more and more customers. Market research for specific franchises would then also

better cater to the needs of the local customer base. This marketing strategy would help boost

sales of each restaurant in its own way.