A hot topic on social media this week has been IHOP’s recent announcement of a temporary name change to IHOb, or International House of Burgers, in an attempt to increase sales for lunch and dinner. While I don’t particularly know of anyone that really loves IHOP, many of my peers have taken to social media, especially Twitter, to voice their opposition to IHOP’s decision. Many people are saying that it was a dumb branding move and IHOP should stick to pancakes, or that if IHOP wanted to make a change to its menu, it should’ve done something else.

While I may not have a fond view of IHOP (who wants to go to a chain breakfast place anyway??), I still think IHOP did something right here: millions of people are now talking about them. I mean here I am writing a damn blog post about them! It’s interesting as someone who is studying advertising to see something like this happen first hand. This really solidifies the notion that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

One thing that I have noticed about my generation is that we love to talk about things we hate. This may be true of everyone, but I’ve noticed it a lot amongst my peers. Rather than talk about things that we enjoy, Gen-Zer’s LOVE to go on and on about things they despise. For example, there was a video from Dr. Phil that got popular last year where a teenage girl, named Danielle Bregoli, got angry with the audience and said: “catch me outside, how bout dat”.

This video blew up and has created a career for this 15-year-old as a rapper (apparently) and an internet personality. Many people have voiced their negative opinions about this girl, but she always seems to stay relevant and does something that keeps her name in the conversation. Although many people voice their negative feelings towards her, they’re still talking about her!

This post has been as a result of me figuring out something: to be popular among young people, you don’t have to be well-liked.

I don’t know if IHOP’s sales are going to increase from this marketing campaign, but their name is in the conversation. If that was IHOP’s goal, they achieved it! I have found that more often than not, something that is disliked is going to be mentioned online before something that is well liked. Although I hate this, it’s just a matter of life! People love complaining!

So if you want to become popular amongst the youth, maybe hire a girl to throw a fit on national TV or change your name to something stupid. Just do anything that we will love to hate.

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.