skills/creative-director/references/legendary-campaigns/cards/ihop-ihob-2018.md

---
id: ihop-ihob-2018
title: "IHOB"
brand: IHOP
agency: Droga5 New York
year: 2018
country: US
region: north_america
industry: qsr
pattern: [P02, P11]
category: stunt_pr
idea_type: campaign
involvement: participation
channel: hybrid
duration: moment
goal: [awareness, engagement, sales]
budget: medium
emotion: [ironic, wry_affection]
emotion_tier: 2
insight_domain: joy
media_epoch: social
awards: [effie]
quality_score: 8
scalability: unique
risk: provocative
confidence: high
quality: canonical
source_url: https://droga5.com/work/ihob/
---

# IHOB (IHOP · 2018)

## Insight
IHOP is famous for pancakes but wants to sell burgers. No one would pay attention to "IHOP launches burgers." But if IHOP announced it was changing its name to IHOB (International House of Burgers), the internet would debate the decision for days before anyone revealed it was a stunt to promote the new burger menu.

## Mechanic
IHOP changed its name to IHOB across social media, signage, and public communications — letting the internet debate whether this was real. The reveal (it was a burger promotion) came after days of earned media, celebrity commentary, and competitor brands piling on. Burger sales increased 4x in the period following.

## Why it worked
Enemy or conflict (P02): the rename created an implicit conflict — loyalty to the pancake identity vs. the burger future — that the internet fought on IHOP's behalf for free. Absurd as carrier (P11): the stunt's premise was inherently ridiculous (a pancake house becoming a burger house), making it newsworthy and shareable. The ambiguity of whether it was real was the mechanism — once resolved, the reveal rewarded engagement.

## Steal
A brand stunt that people cannot definitively decode as real or fake will generate more earned media than one that is obviously either. The period of uncertainty is the campaign. Let the internet argue your brief.

## Related
- Pattern: [[../MOC-pattern.md#p02]]
- Sibling: [[avis-we-try-harder-1962.md|We Try Harder]]
- Sibling: [[kfc-fck-2018.md|FCK]]

---

*Author: Serge Shima ([t.me/aimastersme](https://t.me/aimastersme) · [sergeshima.com](https://sergeshima.com) · [aimasters.me](https://aimasters.me)) · License: CC BY 4.0 — attribution required · Source: [smixs/creative-director-skill](https://github.com/smixs/creative-director-skill)*