IHOP is now...IHOb - Will America survive the chain's beef with pancakes?

Where’s the beef? Apparently, it was hiding in your local pancake shop.

Yep, the International House of Pancakes’ switch from IHOP to IHOb wasn’t just a marketing gimmick. The company is now, drumroll please, the International House of … burgers? (Not burghers, though that might be next.)

The much-debated use of the IHOb did not mean the firm had changed its focus to breakfast. It’s now a burger company that also does pancakes. No matter how you slice it, that’s IHOP/IHOb trying to have its pancake and meat it, too.

And, this isn’t a New Coke disaster. Because Coca-Cola survived that one. The jury is still out to see what kind of pickle IHOb lands in. This looks more like desperate marketers trying to keep an old firm from becoming a has-been by reminding customers it’s a has-bun.

“The company both changed its Twitter handle and propped up signs with the new logo,” wrote USA Today. The new Twitter account is @IHOb with a tagline that’s hard to swallow: “Burgers so burgerin’ good, we changed our name to IHOb. For burgers.” (Hey kids, you too can write marketing phrases that are “so burgerin’ good” that you make enough cheddar to put on your burgers.) IHOb picked Droga5 as its ad agency of record back in November. If you have a beef with anyone, that’s a good candidate to chew out.

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