When COVID-19 hit the nation, IHOP pulled back on paid media spend and looked to refocus business initiatives and dollars to align with the new normal and online ordering. With all the unknown, consumers turned to the internet for distractions and became hungry for humor and levity. They looked to brands online to keep them entertained and distracted and they turned to puzzles. Lots of puzzles.

Without paid media, our objective was to sustain brand relevance by engaging IHOP lovers and the twitterverse with talkworthy content and experiences that flip expectations and maintain our position as a leader in breakfast. The brief was to create low-fi social activation that leveraged consumer engagement to achieve our objective. Mobile gaming was on the rise with the success of Fortnite and Animal Crossing so with no funds we needed to find a way to leverage free tools and IHOP-ify nostalgic video games.

Pancakes aren’t just fun to eat, they’re fun to play with. In the midst of COVID, a country on lockdown, and the majority of IHOP dining rooms closed, we needed to remind folks how much fun pancakes really are. So we invited everyone to play in the Pancake Arcade. Or as we like to call it: The Pancade.

Using the power of GIPHY Arcade, we created four unique games, all inspired by breakfast food. We shot pancakes at aliens in “Galactic Pancakes,” flipped pancakes with a knight on the nite shift in "Late Nite Knight," kept pancakes from pickles in "Hold The Pickles," and returned an egg to a combo plate in "Runny Egg." We built the back story for each game and created all the unique GIPHY characters for each one. These games, together with the social posts, helped us push online ordering in an organic way.

Through social listening, competitive analysis and trend research, we learned that mobile gaming usage increased on average to 26 minutes per day. Something COVID19 probably had a hand in. So we thought, why not make entertaining pancake games of our own? With the customizable templates from The GIPHY Arcade, we created bespoke IHOP mobile games at no cost.

Our target audience was IHOP Lovers, and based on our historic engagement, we identified Twitter and Instagram as platforms to drive interaction with the Pancade. To put our brand voice front and center, we developed in-depth video game stories that were uniquely IHOP and allowed us to break through from the category noise. We drove intrigue to play by creating an ecosystem of content that told a backstory for each game and organically integrated online ordering at IHOP, furthering the key marketing initiative during quarantine.

First, we created custom branded GIFs, uploaded them to GIPHY and built out customized games via GIPHY arcade templates and branded GIFs.

We launched four games across Instagram and Twitter from 7/21/20 to 8/14/20. To support the campaign, we announced the Pancade and the first game at the beginning of the week and followed up with four more games. Twitter Copy and Instagram Stories were used to detail the back story for each game in IHOPs tone of voice organically tying in core equity products, online ordering and PM menu items.

We ended Pancade with an Instagram story encouraging our followers to play in the Pancade, use our unique Pancade GIFs on GIPHY and order IHOP online. The story was loved so much by GIPHY, they shared the Pancade games across their own social handles, furthering the reach of the IHOP games

Turns out, making video games about pancakes can lead to some pretty high scores. The Pancade garnered 198K total collective impressions across Twitter and Instagram and 2K+ overall game clicks. The GIPHY stickers alone were viewed over 1.5MM times.

As expected, the Pancade helped restart the love people have for IHOP dining. Our fans were very excited to play along and expressed how much they are missing dining at IHOP during quarantine. One player went to IHOP and snapped a picture, while others were quick to post about how much they miss IHOP!

And in the end, we learned that when you’re playing with pancakes, there’s no losing.