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IHOP already had Amazon Prime Video and Thursday Night Football on its sponsorship plate, but it wanted to sweeten the proposition by targeting young families on the go. With that in mind, Amazon pointed out that Dale Earnhardt Jr. and NASCAR had room in the passenger seat for another brand.
NASCAR’s new $7.7 billion rights deal with Amazon, NBC Universal, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox kicks off for Amazon on May 25 when it airs the Coca-Cola 600 out of Charlotte Motor Speedway. It’s the first of a five-race series for Amazon stretching into late June that’s seen the company nearly sell out of inventory for NASCAR on Prime Video and create a two-box commercial format for the whole season so sponsors don’t have to break into race coverage.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s four-part documentary about the Earnhardt racing family—”Earnhardt”—debuted today ahead of the first race on Prime.
From personal experience, Lenna Yamamichi, IHOP’s vp of brand creative, saw an opportunity to meet busy families on the move through streaming.
“I am a huge fantasy football fan, and 10 years ago, I used to not leave the house on Sundays, which meant the kids were at home and I couldn’t interact with them because Mommy had to sit in front of the TV,” Yamamichi said. “So now that we’re on the go, I can go to Disneyland with the family, and also have my streaming property.”
Earlier this year, Jay Johns—a six-year IHOP president, and 16-year veteran of IHOP parent company Dine Brands—announced his retirement and succession as IHOP’s leader by former Yum! Brands chief innovation officer Lawrence Kim. That made Yamamichi and her team take a look at their ad spending, where they saw that they had the back half of the upfront to spend with Amazon.
Seeing a trend at the last upfront toward streaming live sports, IHOP approached Amazon with a brief and partnered with them. Amazon came back with seven ideas, one of them being NASCAR.
From there, Amazon and IHOP talked over plans that led to a $6 meal promotion, custom Dale Earnhardt Jr. content running during the docuseries, and both ads and on-screen integration during NASCAR races—including interactive video that lets viewers click right to IHOP’s website when Earnhardt is speaking as part of Amazon’s NASCAR announce team.
“We want to make sure that we’re culturally relevant and that we’re engaging in culture in these big moments,” Yamamichi said. “We are there for you for moments that matter. We’re there for everyday moments. It could be a celebration. It could be graduation, and now we’re part of entertainment.”
Test driving the brand
IHOP isn’t exactly a stranger to NASCAR. In 2023, it placed its logo on driver Aric Almirola and the Stewart-Haas team’s No. 10 Ford Mustang and rebranded drivers’ victory spinout celebrations “pancakes”—awarding points to loyalty program members if the IHOP car won.
But IHOP is also a brand that customers think they know until they haven’t been back in a while. In 2022, it hired agency Pereira O’Dell and underwent a smile-focused rebrand. Recently, it’s wanted more people to know about the options available beyond its restaurants and syrup-abundant tables—focusing on catering.
In one of IHOP’s spots with Earnhardt, it made him an IHOP restaurant employee of the month and put his pit crew to work in the kitchen. When a delivery order comes in, he goes tearing through suburbia in an IHOP-branded car and delivers pancakes to awestruck fans.
“We want to work with people who want an association with the brand—we don’t want it to be forced,” Yamamichi said. “While on set, he was really concerned about being able to pick up his kids from school, and that embodies IHOP so well.”
The Amazon NASCAR partnership opens up several opportunities for IHOP in terms of not only reach but direct impact on its business. While Prime Video’s stream allows for interactive ads, Prime membership also confers free membership in GrubHub+, which includes access to IHOP delivery in several regions, when asked about the potential connection, Yamamichi said IHOP is already looking at its demand-side platform and campaigns for the rest of the year, “seeing where it makes sense.”
Until this, IHOP sees a much more specific finish line ahead for its Amazon NASCAR partnership.
“We are looking for a direct correlation between exposure to traffic, but more than that, we’re looking for positive sentiment and we’re looking for buzz and conversation: ‘Hey, did you catch IHOP? Hey, they were at the races,’” Yamamichi said. “We want to drive brand momentum, we want to show up for our consumers and make sure that we’re fitting with their lives, and we’re there when they need us to be.”
