Denny's is a traditional American diner chain with more than 1,600 locations nationwide, and additional overseas operations

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Denny's is a traditional American diner chain with more than 1,600 locations nationwide, and additional overseas operations in more than a dozen countries. They're well known for their bottomless cups of coffee, Grand Slam breakfasts, and other staples of the greasy spoon. However, in recent years, Denny's identified a positioning problem facing the company: lack of appeal among millennial consumers. Though Denny's has strong national brand awareness, it was associated with visits of convenience or habit: the driver on a road trip, the long-time customer powered by inertia or someone whose 3 a.m. hunger had them on the lookout for any open restaurant. The boomer customer base they did have was aging, leading to a decline in sales, and they were not attracting new consumers to their booths to compensate (Usitalo, 2015). Fortunately for Denny's, this was about to change. In late 2014, John Dillon became the new Chief Marketing Officer of the company, taking over from a predecessor who had already begun to correct the company's course. Under Dillon's leadership, a new social media strategy was launched to attract younger consumers. Two major platforms served as a launchpad for a millennial-friendly social media rebranding: Twitter (twitter.com/dennysdiner) and Tumblr (dennys.tumblr.com). Twitter was an obvious choice for this effort. It is one of the largest social media platforms but attracts a younger and less formal audience for its short, of-the-moment posts than can be found on Facebook. Tumblr was a less-expected decision. Though Tumblr has a young and wealthy user base, its quirky, flexible posting structure has proven challenging for most marketers to master (Sloane, 2014). Its users also tend to be hostile to traditional promotional efforts, even compared to other millennials. However, it was on Tumblr that Denny's millennial rebranding effort truly first clicked. Through the use of surrealistic, almost Dadaist posts, Denny's Tumblr became a content marketing hotspot on the platform. Following the Tumblr account doesn't put traditional advertisements on someone's dashboard. Instead, followers see a steady feed of bizarre question-and-answer sessions with the company representative, where they suggest that only a chicken can make a 'perfect egg', or humorously edited gifs and photographs, where a man might juggle three burgers above an animation of a smiling pancake face. Denny's had become a strange, intriguing and enjoyable destination for millennials on social media, and their Twitter soon began garnering similar amounts of attention. In the first months of 2017, it was rare for any post (whether on Twitter or Tumblr) to earn below one thousand direct interactions. More commonly, each new piece of content had several thousand interactions, and a few viral posts earned tens of thousands of likes, re-blogs or re-tweets. Denny's had become a destination visit online, but did this translate to increases in sales? Yes. Their end-of-year financial results for 2016 reported 6.7% domestic two-year growth (Denny's, 2017). Their deliberate outreach to millennials was timed to coincide with improvements in product quality, which had been building since 2010, and improvements in service related to reinvigorated franchisee relations (Giammona, 2015). Before reaching out to the millennial segment, Denny's upgraded the product offerings to satisfy them when they did have their initial experience with the company. Once this improvement occurred, the use of social media brought in new consumers who demonstrated consistent year-over-year sales growth for the formerly stagnant company. Their Instagram account (instagram.com/Denny diner) has since become equally surreal and with equally strong engagement numbers. Visiting Denny's homepage lists Instagram second in their social media lineup, ahead of Twitter. Denny's is one of the very few major corporations to list their Tumblr account first, and in fact, uses it as their official company blog on their main corporate domain (asblog.dennys.comdisplays theTumblr account's content). Through unique, unexpected and unpredictable content marketing, Denny's successfully changed brand preferences among a notoriously resistant consumer segment. By being one of the few marketers to successfully focus on the Tumblr platform, they also essentially enjoyed a first-mover advantage among an attractive user base that was not already overloaded with corporate posts.Accordingly, they are often pointed to as a true success story on the platform.

1. Why might content marketing like this appeal to consumers who dislike traditional promotional strategies?

2. Why were Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram good platforms to use for Denny's surreal and absurd content marketing? Would you recommend any others?

3. As noted, relatively few companies have a real marketing presence on Tumblr. Why do you think that might be? What is one company that you feel could benefit from an expanded presence on the platform, and why?

4. Denny's stood out by producing unique content. After the broad success they've seen, imitators of their style would be obvious. With that in mind, what can other marketers hope to learn and reproduce from their strategy?