Over the summer one of the most talked about marketing campaigns was the IHOb campaign. The International House of Pancakes announced they were changing from IHOP to IHOb and later announced that the “b” stood for “burgers”. Shortly afterward they admitted it was all a publicity stunt to help build awareness of their line of burgers. This campaign has potential for a couple of class discussions. First, was it successful? Clearly they succeeded in getting people talking about their company but whether it drove sales is more ambiguous. This article from the USA Today suggests it did not drive a material increase in sales. Another article from geomarketing.com indicates that there was an increase in male traffic but the net result was negative due to lower traffic by females.
Another angle to discuss is the ethicality of the campaign. Is it ethical for a company to say “we’re changing our name” when they have no intention to do so? Does this create a bad precedent or does it cause other companies to push the boundaries of deceptive marketing? How far is too far when trying to gain publicity?
The measure of your impact in social media is often the number of followers or views that you have. The theory being that better, more interesting, or more popular individuals and content will naturally draw a larger follower base than those of lesser interest. However, it seems that everywhere you turn there are individuals willing to venture into ethical grey areas to get ahead. The New York Times wrote this lengthy but fascinating article titled 
We have all seen our fair share of unethical or misleading marketing campaigns in the world. In the quest to win customers, companies will often do whatever they can to woo consumers to their value proposition. Unfortunately, that involves blurring the lines of right and wrong far more than it should or needs to. A few companies have decided to take a stand in the opposite direction. Dove made headlines over a decade ago when they decided to use more natural models and CVS Health is following suit with a new set of standards for imagery associated with beauty products. 
This Bloomberg article, “
The internet has given consumers incredible power when it comes to evaluating and purchasing products. No longer do you have to visit multiple stores to compare different products. Visiting websites of multiple manufacturers couldn’t be simpler but it’s not just access to manufacturer provided product information that has changed. Consumers have always been skeptical of promotional messages from sellers, rightly assuming those messages are biased. That skepticism has given rise to the popularity of “unbiased” consumer reviews. Go to Amazon or most other online retailer and you can quickly find product information provided by the manufacturer along with consumer reviews and ratings. This desire for consumer to consumer reviews has become the entire business model for companies such as Yelp.