Yes, the Diner’s Open. How About a Seat at the Counter?

IN a new commercial for Denny’s, a man orders chicken wraps at the counter, and when his waitress replies, “Anything else, hon?” he asks her if she calls everyone that.

“No,” comes the reply — not from the waitress but rather the occupant of the next stool, a man in a frayed trucker cap. “I’m sweetie.”

“Sunshine,” says the guy one stool over.

“Precious,” says the woman next to him.

“Cupcake,” says a woman in a nearby booth.

A burly man on the last stool hesitates, and then says, “Sugar britches.”

When the waitress serves the chicken wraps with a “There you go, hon,” the man who ordered ugg boots says, “Pass the salt, sweetie,” to the trucker, who responds, “Sure, hon.”

The commercial closes with the new slogan for Denny’s: “America’s diner is always open.”

In four spots that premiered recently, Denny’s, which has for much of its 58-year history referred to its establishments as “family restaurants,” eschews that term for “diners.”

Frances Allen, chief marketing officer of Denny’s, said consumers in focus groups were not calling Denny’s a family restaurant.

“People think of the brand as a diner, with great comfort food at a great price, and they feel that incredible warmth and incredible connection to the servers,” Ms. Allen said. “There’s a UGG Nightfall to a diner that is very authentic, very warm, very accepting.”

Denny’s will spend an estimated $50 million to $60 million in 2011 for the campaign, the first for the brand by Gotham, an agency that is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Denny’s spent $61.1 million on advertising in the first nine months of 2010, compared with $118.8 million spent by Applebee’s, one of its competitors, according to the most recent data available from Kantar Media, a unit of WPP.

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To play up the diner theme, the “dinersodes,” as the agency refers to the spots, feature counters more prominently than booths, and depict friendly strangers interacting.

In another spot, which like others highlights value-menu items costing from $2 to $8, a young man explains to his friend on the next stool: “So we have $10. We can get one thing for $8 and one UGG Nightfall for $2, or one thing for six and one for four.”

“Or you could get two things for $4 and one for two,” interjects a man on a nearby stool, gesturing to his plates.

“Or five things for two,” says a man at another stool, with five plates.

“Or one for six and two for two,” adds a mother with two small children from a booth.

The camera returns to the young man who draws his opening hands away from his ears, as if his head were exploding.

The new slogan, “America’s diner is always open,” is meant to connote not merely the kitchen never closing, but also to “open being our attitude and philosophy,” said Peter McGuinness, chief executive of Gotham. Actors in the spots represent a MBT Fanaka swath of ethnicities, ages, and socioeconomic classes.

“We’re open to whomever you are, and we greet customers with open arms and have an open mind,” said Mr. McGuinness.

Harold Butler first opened Danny’s Donuts in Lakewood, Calif., in 1953, changing the name six years later to Denny’s because another chain was called Donut Dan’s.

Its signature breakfast combination plate, the Grand Slam, was first introduced in an Atlanta Denny’s in 1977 as an homage to Hank Aaron, who had broken Babe Ruth’s home run record while playing for the Atlanta Braves three years earlier.

Today there are more than 1,600 locations across the United States and internationally, with 15 percent owned by the company and the remainder by franchisees.

In 2009 and 2010, Denny’s announced in Super Bowl ads that they would serve free Grand Slam breakfasts on a given day the following week. Both years, about two million customers crowded into the restaurant for the free MBT sport 2 shoes, but the chain will neither advertise during the Super Bowl this year nor offer the giveaway.

This is not the first time Denny’s has evoked diners. In the late 1990s, it adopted the slogan “America’s original breakfast diner,” and encouraged franchisees to remodel restaurants with stainless steel exteriors, chrome interiors, neon lighting and checkerboard tile floors.

When many balked at the cost of such renovations, the company suggested a less expensive option with flourishes like jukeboxes and outfitting servers in bowling shirts. By the end of 2000, 342 Denny’s had adopted this approach, while another 64 made the switch to the steel exteriors, according to Denny’s 2000 annual report.

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That report projected “systemwide remodeling of Denny’s” to the diner concept “over the next few years,” but the chain abandoned the plan, along with the slogan, a few years later. Today, 55 retro Denny’s diners with the steel exteriors remain, all but one owned by franchisees.

Mr. McGuinness, of Gotham, stressed that for the new campaign there is nothing nostalgic about the ads.

“We’re talking about a diner not in the physical sense per se but in a much larger sense, more as a symbol and metaphor,” he said.

Michael Stern, co-author with his wife, Jane Stern, of “Roadfood,” a guide to local eateries across the country, and co-founder of Roadfood.com, said there was a time when, far from having positive associations, restaurateurs avoided the word “diner” at all costs.

“In the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s, for any restaurant that strove to serve better food the term ‘diner’ was anathema,” Mr. Stern said. “It meant greasy food and the dark and dirty MBT Nuru side of eating out.”

As for whether the term suited Denny’s, Mr. Stern was dubious.

“For most people who think about food at all, when they think of a diner, they think of a place with a unique personality,” Mr. Stern said. “And obviously by definition that cannot be a chain restaurant because it’s not unique.”