Inside’s IHOP’s ‘Let’s put a smile on your plate’ brand refresh

The brand refresh began last year, with what IHOP’s chief marketer Kieran Donahue calls “the most comprehensive brand research [IHOP has] ever done.” The pandemic, Donahue says, coupled with new digital technologies, has transformed not only her brand but the restaurant industry as a whole.

“We’re in a bit of a transformation period,” Donahue tells The Drum. “People have changed ... and we also wanted to just really get underneath the ‘why’ behind people’s love for IHOP.”

The “true north” that Donahue and her team eventually arrived at was what she calls “the recipe for joy.” Pereira O’Dell’s challenge then became to bring that recipe for joy vividly to life. A new ad, being released on April 11, is the agency’s first effort to realize that goal.

The ad – and the broader campaign – revolves primarily around the use of the IHOP logo’s red smile as an iconographic centerpiece. The new TV spot, which includes footage of actors of all ages sitting in IHOP restaurants laughing and sharing intimate moments, is also geared toward cultivating an ethos of human connection.

The soundtrack to the new ad is a remake of Louis Armstrong’s When You’re Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You), which the brand hopes will further emphasize the jovial and welcoming atmosphere that it’s trying to associate with IHOP.

Pereira O’Dell won the IHOP account at the end of a competitive creative review process. The agency will manage all of the restaurant chain’s creative strategy and campaign work moving forward. The agency’s other top-tier current clients include Adobe, Corona, Dreyer’s and Intel.

Donahue said she was immediately impressed by the agency’s willingness to get to know the brand at a deep level. “They got to know us,” she says. “The team wanted to make sure that it was authentic to who we were.” She was also sold by the agency’s confidence in the creative direction that it was envisioning. “It was unusual for me to sit in a pitch process and have the agency come in with such conviction, and only one pitch. Only one. And there was no doubt, there was no wavering, there was absolute belief.”

Rob Lambrechts, Pereira’s chief creative officer, recalls the moment he realized that the new campaign had truly tapped into and captured the heart of IHOP. With the strategizing process already completed, he was sitting with his 10-year-old daughter in an IHOP one Friday morning and watched her face light up in a smile as she beheld the glory of pancakes with whipped cream and chocolate chips. “Seeing her reaction when she got it ... was one of those moments where everything just felt right. And there’s not words to describe that, there’s no logical progression, it was just a feeling that this was the right thing to do in this moment.”

‘Let’s put a smile on your plate’ also introduces IHOP’s new app-based loyalty program, called ‘The international bank of pancakes,’ wherein customers can earn ‘pancoins’ to earn free food.

Additional campaign spots are currently in the works. “These [upcoming] spots will showcase the craft behind the food as they center around the griddle, where IHOP’s joy commences,” IHOP said in a statement.

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