On Monday morning, the restaurant chain previously known as International House of Pancakes, or IHOP, announced its highly anticipated name change.
Dear Internet, we abbreciate your batience. Now let’s see who guessed right. B-hold!!!!! #IHOb pic.twitter.com/Fh3SkZ7s3Y
— IHOb (@IHOb) June 11, 2018
Well then.
The name change came after a brief teaser campaign that saw the chain tweeting out hints and using the letter B in blace place of the letter “P” in its social media marketing. The new name is pronounce “Eye-Hobb,” btw.
International House of Breakfast? #IHOb pic.twitter.com/q62B5150p5
— Blake Buell (@blake_buell) June 7, 2018
I, and I think many other people, thought the chain was going to be changing its name to “International House of Breakfast,” or “International House of Brunch,” but nope. It not only went all in on burgers, but it went there and it brought property, y’all. Such a pivot!
The internet largely hated it, but it seemed to yield real results for the company: The Los Angeles Times reported that the buzz around the name change sent parent company Dine Brands Global Inc.’s stock up nearly 3 percent for the day.
It was not immediately clear on Monday if the name change was permanent, though my money is on it being a fairly temporary push.
Meanwhile, fellow chains (and competitors?) Denny’s and Wendy’s took the opportunity to throw some serious Twitter #shade.
👦: Grandpa, do you remember the Great Burger Wars?
👴: lol no I was chillin drinkin milkshakes and trying to make sense of Westworld— Denny's (@DennysDiner) June 11, 2018
Remember when you were like 7 and thought changing your name to Thunder BearSword would be super cool?
Like that, but our cheeseburgers are still better.— Wendy's (@Wendys) June 11, 2018