IHOP® core tasting menu activation
services deployed
experience / content strategy
creative direction
spatial design
environmental brand deployment
IHOP® was debuting their new brand campaign called “Let’s put a smile on your plate” and wanted to showcase new and innovative menu items for writers, influencers, editors, and media personalities.
Working together, we built out a tasting experience built around infusing joy, happiness, and creating culture relevance for attendees. This one-of-a-kind experience providing nostalgic storytelling moments that leaned into building memories — a core part of the IHOP customer experience. We designed and built out a culinary playground highlighting IHOP’s 60+ years of serving up smiles with pancakes, burgers, omelettes, and more.
our task
Known for their family-friendly, all-day signature breakfasts, IHOP set their campaign goals to attract younger food industry influencers. However, they were not certain on how to bridge the gap between this target demographic and their current customers.
They enlisted No Hot Ashes to help with an evening tasting event where they planned to unveil new menu items for customers. Our goal was to capture the feeling guests have when they dine at IHOP, including a sense of togetherness, belonging, nostalgia, and joy for this activation.
solution
IHOP has been a leader, innovator, and expert in all things breakfast for over 60 years. We leaned into that strong and established brand, capturing the feeling guests have when they dine at IHOP. We utilized classic design elements like IHOP’s iconic blue tiling, classic diner mugs, and furniture layout.
We created social content moments including a mug personalization station, a photo backdrop featuring the iconic IHOP smile, open kitchen layout, and playful wall art. The experience emphasized putting smiles on guest’s plates with new menu options — that writers, influencers, editors, and media personalities could document, review, and share.
The campaign resulted in millions of social impressions, and brought a new generation of customers into the sense of togetherness, belonging, nostalgia, and joy of IHOP.
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