Ep 04: Clicks to Bricks with Brad Haley, CMO of IHOP

Podcast

Mar 11

If you live in America, chances are very high that you have been to IHOP at least once in your life, no matter how old you are. While it has become a staple in the food industry after 62 years in the business, the love that many people had for it was latent and nostalgic, which meant that they were not actively going to the restaurant. Brad Haley, the CMO, has worked to have the brand make a cultural impact once again. Before taking up his role at IHOP, Brad worked at Jack In The Box and Carl’s Jr, where he had a knack for creating campaigns that the mainstream media covered as news.

In this episode, we talk about Brad’s work at IHOP, including the hugely successful IHOB campaign which was splashed across every headline. Through this initiative, the chain quadrupled their burger sales! Brad talks about the importance of taking calculated risks in today’s noisy marketing landscape and why it is so important to be disruptive. He also shares how his experience has set him up for the role at IHOP and sheds light on the PR style approach he has taken with marketing. While the company has not explicitly set aside large amounts of money for PR, this marketing model has served them well and has been received with open arms by the consumers. Brad has done a tremendous job in making IHOP a household name once more. Be sure to tune in to hear his tremendous insights.

Key Points From This Episode:

62 years on: Brad walks us through the different stages of the IHOP brand over the years.
Insights into the IHOB campaign and how it capitulated IHOP back into popular culture.
Find out about Brad’s professional experience at Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s.
Why Brad ended up making the move to IHOP and what it was like when he arrived.
Some of the changes that Brad made when he stepped into his CMO role at IHOP.
How management reacted to a more PR driven approach to marketing.
Brad’s take on the evolution of multi-retail marketing evolution and where it’s going.
Find out more about the different approaches IHOP is taking to performance and branding.
Learn more about IHOP’s recently launched campaign and their approach to it.
How IHOP tackles multi-generational marketing and appealing to each niche.
What the increased breakfast offerings in the QSR space mean for IHOP.
Find out what IHOP is doing to engage with Google search and unbranded search.
IHOP’s brand purpose and the many things that they are doing to fulfill it.
The structure of IHOP, the number of locations, and the composition of the marketing team.
Insights into IHOP’s new Flip’d concept and the target market that it is going to cater to.
Brad’s advice for up and coming marketing and how he’s mentoring the next generation.
IHOP’s investment in technology and who Brad would like to see on the show.

Tweetables:

“When I started, my big challenge was to convert that latent love into real love and actionable behaviors and make the brand more relevant.” — Brad Haley [0:05:00]

“If you can impact culture, it’s something that can’t be avoided or skipped or blocked like most other forms of advertising.” — Brad Haley [0:05:31]

“One of the things that we hear all the time, in the consumer insights work that we do, is that people feel like they can come to IHOP as they are.” — Brad Haley [0:37:35]

“It’s more important today to be disruptive than perhaps it’s been in the history of marketing. So, be smart and get noticed and try to impact culture to the extent you can.” — Brad Haley [0:45:09]