Branding Lessons Bloggers Can Learn From IHOP’s “IHOB” Campaign

Bloggers can gain inspiration and learn from the strangest places. Recently, I viewed a commercial by IHOP, admitting that their “IHOB” campaign was a stunt. This got me to thinking a lot about branding and how it applies to blogging.

As a blogger, there are many branding lessons that you can learn from this campaign and apply to your blogging business. These concepts will help strengthen your brand and improve your marketing campaigns so that your blog is primed for success.

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Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple months, you have probably heard of the “IHOB” campaign from IHOP. The restaurant chain announced on June 5, 2018 that it would be changing its name to IHOB. They also stated they would be releasing the new name on June 11th.

Rebranding a successful brand is a huge deal. For those of us who already love grabbing some IHOP for breakfast on occasion, this caused a mixture of intrigue and confusion.

On one hand, we found the name change exciting. What could the “B” stand for?

Breakfast? They do make more than pancakes after all!

Bacon? Always a crowd pleaser!

Nope. We were all wrong.

The chain announced on June 11th, that it would be changing its name to International House of Burgers.

Seriously?

I think Wendy’s said it best on Twitter when they tweeted, “Can’t wait to try a burger from the place that decided pancakes were too hard.” Wendy’s, a master of branding and social media marketing, continued to roast IHOP with other humorous tweets and replies.

On top of this, it was also discovered that IHOP wasn’t actually changing its name! It now admits that the “name change” was merely a stunt to advertise their new burger line up.

Branding Lessons to Learn

I don’t understand how a company as large as IHOP failed to realized that lying to your customers isn’t a good idea.  However, the campaign did generate a buzz on social media, especially Twitter. However, tweets only count if they turn into profits.

As of now, IHOP is reporting a profit this quarter. However, short-term sales may not be worth the long-term losses associated with branding damage.

Here are some branding lessons that bloggers can learn from this misleading advertising campaign.

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Know Your Competition and Choose a Profitable Niche

As bloggers, we know it is important to choose a profitable niche. This helps your blog and brand stand out. To be a successful blogger, you have to be one of the best in your field or choose a niche where you can stand out.

I mean, what was IHOP thinking? This new campaign places them in direct competition with burger masters and giants. Aside from Wendy’s who specializes in fresh, never frozen beef (their niche), you have Five Guys, Whataburger, Hardee’s / Carl Jr.’s, and a huge number of other burger chains that own the niche.

Unless IHOP was planning to serve breakfast themed burgers or introduce burgers for breakfast, they simply can’t stand out in this saturated market.

Learn from this huge mistake and choose a niche where your blog can succeed. Don’t choose a niche where you can’t make an impact. That is just branding suicide.

Today’s Customers Value Honesty and Transparency

If IHOP had done their research, they would have found that millennials, their primary target audience, love authenticity and already distrust advertising. This makes their misleading gimmick very, very risky for the long-term customer retention and success for the brand.

Dan Hill, CEO of Hill Impact, pointed out in an interview with CNBC that the “IHOB” campaign was deceitful with its campaign. This is not what a modern brand wants to be known for and is something every blogger and business should avoid.

Bloggers have to work hard and develop a relationship with their readers to earn their trust. Now imagine throwing that hard-won trust away on the chance that you might generate buzz for a new product or service.

This is a major branding lesson for bloggers. This would be the would be the equivalent of announcing that you are changing the name of your blog in a week. Then, when the time comes to announce the change, you announce that your name isn’t changing at all that it’s just an acronym for your new course.

Essentially, you used your audience to generate a buzz for your product. This is misleading and dishonest, even if the intentions were meant well. This is not cool, ever.

Brand Damage Is Likely

If you were to deceive your audience, I can guarantee your brand would suffer tremendously, especially if you are a fairly new blogger. You would be unfollowed on social media and people would unsubscribe from your email list wicked fast.

Once you lose the trust of your reader, it is very difficult, if not impossible to recover. It is best to prevent this type of damage to your brand in the first place.

Right now, IHOP is selling more burgers and are reporting higher earnings for the quarter. However, this could be a temporary gain. I am curious to see their earnings a year from now. A campaign similar to the “IHOB” campaign would not succeed in the future since they are now the restaurant chain that called “Wolf!”

I am positive that no other campaigns will generate this type of buzz for the company in the foreseeable future. Once you manipulate your customer, there is no taking it back.

For bloggers, the bottom line is, don’t lie to your customer. Ever! Be transparent and honest. Don’t mislead or use your audience for your own gain. It is not worth the risk under any circumstances. I’m afraid that IHOP will learn this branding lesson soon enough.

What You Should Do Instead

Not all risk-taking is bad for your brand. Taking risks is how entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies are born. In fact, it is an excellent idea to try out new and unorthodox ideas and concepts with your audience. It is also fairly easy to learn whether or not your audience will respond well to new ideas before you implement your ideas.

You do not need to lie, mislead, or overexaggerate your products or services to get attention and make more sales. Instead, be honest with your audience and develop a relationship built on trust.

Don’t be afraid to take reasonable risks, but consider the consequences of your actions. Float your ideas by someone you can trust and try them out before taking the plunge. It is a much better alternative and will limit damages if your idea isn’t as great as you had planned.

Know Your Customer

The biggest branding lesson you can learn from this campaign is to know your customer! Every blogger and entrepreneur has access to software and statistics that help you analyze your customers to determine who they are. You literally have no excuse for skipping this step in the branding process.

Before you even consider a marketing campaign or any major brand changes, know who you are marketing to. Each group of audience members or customers is unique to the brand. It is important to find out exactly who your customer is. Once you know their basic demographics, you can study them more thoroughly.

As a blogger, it is simple. First, analyze your Google Analytics, Pinterest Analytics, and Tailwind Insights data. Write down the age, sex, and location of your average customer. Find out which search queries and links or images they click on. Find out which pages they visit. The more you can find out, the better.

Gather this information and look for connections and trends in the data. This will help you know who your ideal customer is and what works best for them.

Once you know this information, you can cater to your customer, which will capture their attention. Just remember to be true to your brand and help develop a successful brand around your customer to keep their business.

Do Your Research

I think this is where the IHOB campaign failed miserably. It’s like they didn’t even try to find out what their audience values before they created the campaign. The campaign’s only success is that they advertised a product that would generate better lunch and dinner sales for their target audience.

When you are ready to market a product to your customers, do some serious marketing research on your target customer. Find out how to better market to them and for them. Find out what they respond well to and what they flat out dislike. Discover where your customers hang out online and establish a presence there.

To do this, start by Googling marketing statistics for the demographics that represent your ideal customer. Read news articles and study marketing journals and magazines before creating a content or marketing strategy. This branding lesson requires a bit of work, but it is essential information that will guide your brand.

Test Out Your Ideas Before You Go Public

If you think that only large companies can afford to have a consumer panel that provides valuable feedback, think again. There are other ways that you can test your ideas before you implement them and you can do it on a budget.

One of the first things that I recommend that you do is run your ideas by any mentors, coaches, or colleagues that you know will provide honest feedback. This is a great way to get valuable feedback from people within your industry who have more experience. They are more likely to identify problems since they have likely made similar mistakes.

After getting feedback from your mentors, you need to know what your ideal audience thinks of your idea. Send out an email and social media posts requesting volunteers to be part of a select group to test your ideas.

Offer a freebie as an incentive that is exclusive to group members who complete a survey or review of your ideas. This works best when you already have a decent following and a few loyal, honest followers who genuinely want to help you out.

Finally, revise your work. If your customers have issues or concerns, take those seriously and revise your work based on your ideal customer’s thoughts and opinions. It doesn’t matter if your work is a new product or a marketing campaign. If there is something that you can do to make it better, do it! Taking the lazy route could destroy your business.

Don’t Make These Branding Mistakes

As a blogger, you can’t afford to make branding mistakes like the recent IHOP campaign. While I still love some IHOP on my vacations, it breaks my heart a little that the chain pulled this kind of stunt on its customers. Only time will tell if the chain will succeed in the years to come. Don’t be IHOP, bloggers. Just don’t.

What do you think? Can you find any other lessons in the “IHOB” campaign. If so, please feel free to share your insights in the comments below.