DIN
#<UNK>, I am so glad you asked that question, because I get to tell you, it is everywhere.
It's breakfast, it's lunch, it's dinner, it's late-night.
It's every daypart, it's throughout the day.
It is everything at IHOP.
It is sales, it is traffic, it is all doing extremely well.
Across the country, across the board, I would call it an A-plus-plus.
Yes, I may not have been clear in prior calls.
That is a three-year commitment.
It is all of 2015, it's all of 2016, and it's all of 2017.
It is the same increase for three years.
Yes, I have answered this question before, and I know this probably frustrates everyone.
We don't see a real difference in our sales or traffic driven by the competitive set.
The large majority of the category is independents.
And the truth of the matter is, when we steal share, we are going to steal share from largely the independents.
We don't see a lot of shift one way or the other because a competitor went on television and said something or drove a price point.
That is not really what our nemesis is, or our focus.
It is really us differentiating ourselves in the category.
What our consumers tell us is they see in general in the casual dining category a lot of sameness, and our whole focus is really on differentiating ourselves from everyone else in the category.
And that is what I was speaking to earlier.
This notion of being bigger and bolder is really focused on, once and for all, just separating us from the entire category.
That is what we are really seeing.
It is not anything that is particularly a price point or a promotion.
That is just not what we are seeing at all.
And that hasn't been for some time.
That has really not been our issue.
Yes.
Great question.
It is a couple of very specific things.
One is a very focused management team and a very focused group of franchisees who don't try to do 20 things, but do a couple things outstanding.
That is the focus we've had at IHOP.
That is the focus we are going to get at Applebee's.
That is number one.
Number two is, it is not any one thing.
It is all of those things in combination.
So it's the effort on operations, this incredible maniacal focus on advertising.
It's focus on innovation.
It's doing all those things simultaneously.
It's not sequential.
It's doing them at at once and getting maniacally focused on doing a couple of things well.
I never want to underestimate the power of the execution on the IHOP side and doing that same execution on the Applebee's side.
And quite candidly, there is a huge advantage on the Applebee's side.
It is not 365 franchisees like it is on the IHOP side.
It's 33 franchisees who own all the restaurants in the domestic US and getting them maniacally focused.
And the great news is I couldn't be more complementary of the work, the effort and the commitment these franchisees have to do whatever it takes to break out of the mold.
And that is the best news of the day.
I just literally came from being with all of them in Miami, Florida, and they are maniacally focused on doing just that.
So that is the best news of the day.
Thanks, operator, and thank you all for joining us today.
We are scheduled to report the fourth quarter on February 24.
If you have any questions in the meantime, please feel free to call myself or <UNK> or <UNK>.
Thanks again.
