A few weeks back there were stories that ihop was changing its name to ihob. Doesn’t seem to have been done. I didn’t follow the story closely, so was that just a publicity stunt, or do they still plan to change the name to ihob?
It was a publicity stunt/campaign.
For IHOP, it was a publicity stunt. It worked. They were flooded with inquiries about the name change, and threats from those who said they would stop eating there because of it. Millions of eaters were talking about IHOP, far more than usual.
Now, I hear Dunkin Donuts is planning to remove the word
‘Donut’ from their ads. I suspect that too is a publicity stunt. It makes even less sense for them to change the name than with IHOP. “I’m going to what? I’m going to ‘Dunkin’?”