Marketing

IHOP’s suggestive tweet about women’s breasts falls flat

October 19, 2015 | By Jordan Valinsky

IHOP is waking up with a lot of egg on its face.

Last night, the breakfast chain was slammed on Twitter for sending out a sexist tweet joking about women’s breasts. “Flat but has a GREAT personality,” the tweet’s caption said with a glamour shot of pancakes.

The tweet was sent to its 242,000 followers and was deleted after it garnered a lot of backlash.

Here it is:

Reaction on Twitter ranged from pure bafflement about IHOP’s “edgy” voice to pure outrage from others. “Oh my god, why does the @IHOP social media person spend so much time telling ladies that they love them & complimenting their looks?,” wrote a Twitter user, comparing IHOP to a “creepy uncle.” That sentiment was shared by others, too: 

While others defended IHOP, saying people were overreacting.

Still, the negative reaction was strong enough for IHOP to tweet an apology last night:

Taking a page out of Denny’s social media playbook, IHOP has also emulated a quippy and “youthful” tone on its Twitter account over the past year. For example, a tweet that said “pancakes on fleek” collected 27,000 retweets and 19,000 faves and other strange tweets, like this:

IHOP said it’s trying to reach the all important millennial audience, telling Adweek last year the social network “skews younger so it’s important to talk the talk when it comes to that fan base,” a representative said.

IHOP did not immediately respond to Digiday’s request for comment, but the brand seems aware that the tweet wasn’t exactly on fleek.

Update 12:05 pm ET: IHOP provided this statement: “It was a dumb thing to do and we’re sorry it happened. The brand is about engaging with our guests and fans but as much as we’d like to we don’t get it right 100% of time. That doesn’t mean we’ll stop trying.”

Images via Facebook.

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