IHOP Forever Changing Lives, Changing Twitter
"IHOP is running its annual National Pancake Day campaign until the big day, March 8, when the chain gives away free stacks of flapjacks and asks patrons to donate to a good cause. This year, proceeds will go to Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, and the brand's goal is to raise $3.5 million.
Interestingly, the Glendale, Calif.-based company is using personalized Promoted Tweets that include GIFs and Twitter users' names in each ad. IHOP is employing the platform'sTailored Audiences feature, targeting approximately 7.3 million users, according to a rep for the company.
To zero in on such a group in a personal way the brand, working with agency MRM//McCann, set up 37 custom audiences based on 20 popular names and their derivatives (e.g., Christopher or Chris).
Christopher, celebrate #NATLPancakeDay w/ a FREE short stack & an invite for a friend! https://t.co/PABtlkznck pic.twitter.com/1fFQdOYTaz
— IHOP (@IHOP) March 1, 2016
While other brands like Coke have used Tailored Audiences, IHOP appears to be one of the first to combine the users' names with GIFs. It worked particularly well Thursday when #GIFparty was trending on Twitter all day." Adweek
Everyone knows that lumberjacks made the world as great as it is. I'm not even just talking about the American world here, I'm talking about the earthen one. Lumberjacks took trees and made them into all things wood: houses, rocking horses, basketball courts, vampire-killing stakes, skateboards, bar tops, and everything else in the whole wide wood. If it's wood, it's thanks to a lumberjack. If it's not wood, it's nothing. Suck on that, plastic! Not you though, metal, you're OK. Things have been hard enough for you ever since the last 10 years worth of music killed the electric guitar. What will you do about the state of metal, President Obama? You've pulled the steel wool over all of our eyes. Anyway, lumberjacks conquered the wild and gave us all a purpose again, a purpose that of course ended the moment people started drinking tea. Do you know who didn't drink tea? The lumberjacks. They were too busy having oxen and making the lakes of Minnesota. Too busy making paper towels. Too busy making plaid and beards, both of which all these plastic-worshiping hipster boys (they are not men) have hijacked. Too busy drinking coffee and eating pancakes. Yes, pancakes. Pancakes are the basis of lumberjacks, and therefore the basis of the entire world, the international world.
That's why the International House Of Pancakes is so incredible: they make pancakes, which make progress. As if this isn't enough in itself, IHOP is now aiming to raise $3.5 million for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, all through donations given to them after they give free pancakes to us. Honestly, it's one of the most awesome causes and such an awesome way to go about it. Good on IHOP. They're putting the butter and syrup of excellence on top of the pancake empire that they've already created. So get out there on March 8th, eat some pancakes, donate some money, then go be your own lumberjack. It's the least you can do for all that IHOP has done for all of us.
IHOP has also forever changed Twitter. Sure, it's not their technology, this personalized gif-business, but it also is theirs, because they're the ones using it. Like pancakes, IHOP didn't invent personalized tweet gifs. However, also like pancakes, they have revolutionized it. Just when it seemed that IHOP had reached the syrup ceiling, they pull down a secret staircase of flapjack stairs. It leads right to heaven. Twitter will never be the same and it's all thanks to IHOP. So, as always, thank you IHOP. The world is better because of pancakes. The world is because of pancakes. The world is pancakes. The world revolves around the sun. The sun is a hot ball of restaurant butter. It's a pancake universe and we're all just living in it. Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes. It's not even a pancake job. It's a pancake party:
RT to RSVP #GIFparty pic.twitter.com/Qyetd3DXoL
— IHOP (@IHOP) March 3, 2016