Twitter

IHOP Switches Name Back From IHOb for Pancake Promotion

The IHOb campaign "did exactly what we intended it to do," a company representative told NBC

What to Know

  • The pancake chain is going back to its original name after briefly being IHOb
  • Last month, three industry experts told NBC that the burger promotion would create additional competition for the restaurant
  • When a user tweeted that the initial name change was a joke, Wendy’s responded “of course it was"

IHOb is no more.

About a month after changing its name from IHOP to IHOb as part of a marketing campaign aimed at promoting its new line of hamburgers, the pancake chain is going back to its original name and has changed its Twitter handle accordingly.

The change came Monday as the restaurant introduced an upcoming pancake promotion. To celebrate its 60th birthday, IHOP will be offering a short stack of pancakes for 60 cents between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on July 17.

“We’re incredibly proud of the IHOb campaign that was created to announce our new Ultimate Steakburgers – it did exactly what we intended it to do, which was to get people talking about, and thinking differently about, IHOP,” a company spokeswoman said in an email to NBC.

Last month, three industry experts told NBC that the burger promotion would create additional competition for the restaurant and questioned whether it would have the intended effect. Restaurant consultant Aaron Allen said last month the name change would “go down in the international house of branding blunders.”

After IHOP first announced the name change, several other fast food restaurants that serve hamburgers joked about changing their names. Wendy’s commented following the change back and wasn’t surprised. When a user tweeted that the name change was a joke, Wendy’s responded “of course it was.”

“All along, we said IHOb was a fun, temporary name change to launch our new burgers,” the spokeswoman said Tuesday. “There was never an intention of walking away from pancakes or IHOP.”

Contact Us