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IHOP introduces photo contest, but its 360-degree video lacks luster

IHOP Restaurants is offering customers who win its new socially-driven photo contest a year?s worth of breakfast in support of its new Eat Up Every Moment campaign.

The company is also leveraging 360-degree video to give consumers a live-action look into an IHOP location, and also to provide an additional channel for campaign content. The multichannel approach will give consumers many avenues to access and participate in campaign initiatives, but the precarious prospects of the immersive video platform means that it is difficult to determine whether IHOP will get a significant return on investment.

?Given the phone is in everyone's hands and the fact that sharing is the new normal, a contest like this makes sense,? said Jeff Hasen, founder of Gotta Mobilize and author of The Art of Mobile Persuasion.

?The video component adds another ingredient and is timely given the increasing number of views of video and the declining cost of data. The key here is for IHOP to make the experience memorable. 

?Without that element, this is another me-too contest that shines the light on the less than appealing."

Social contest
IHOP?s contest, called the My IHOP Photo Contest, urges guests to post a photo of a memorable moment at an IHOP location on social media, specifically on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Users that caption their photos with the hashtag #IHOPMomentContest by midnight, October 17 enter themselves for a chance to be voted the winner by the public.

The grand prize winner of the photo contest will receive a $2,600 in IHOP gift cards, the approximate value of a year?s worth of IHOP breakfasts. The first runner-up will receive a $100 IHOP gift card, and the second runner-up will receive a $50 IHOP gift card.  

Nine other finalists will receive a package of IHOP collectibles.

Eat Up Every Moment also includes a mobile-optimized 360-degree video, an experience accessible via the YouTube app and enhanced through Google Cardboard.

A screenshot from IHOP's 360-degree video

The video places the user at a vantage point within the middle of a bustling IHOP location while a narrator delineating a few of the reasons to congregate at IHOP? studying, date night, family dinner? over agreeable music, the reasons manifesting themselves in a tableau of satisfied diners around the viewer.

A conservative approach
While the contest is a tried-and-true technique to increasing user engagement, the inclusion 360-video seems to be a misstep for IHOP.

The experience is enhanced through Google Cardboard

Usually, immersive experiences are used for more specific purposes, such as when Deschutes Brewery used 360-degree immersive video in order to effectively communicate brand narrative through setting and scenery (see story). 

In this instance, IHOP?s leveraging of immersive video seems particularly uninspired. The content itself is reminiscent of an older approach best served for advertising sandwiched within daytime television, not something a consumer would go out of their way to unpack their Google Cardboard for.

Marketers would be best advised not to use 360-degree video as a novel panacea for their engagement woes; the platform is best leveraged with its strengths in mind, such as when Fox Sports broadcasted a college football matchup between Ohio State and Oklahoma live through virtual reality for all Android and iOS users (see story). 

"Kodak's former CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett said that his company is in the memory business, not the film business,? Mr. Hasen said. 

?And that was before mobile took off. Now you can lose track of entities that position themselves that way. IHOP is just the latest.?