Womack Restaurants is a financially strong and growing franchise within the IHOP system with locations in Indiana and Ohio. The company wanted to plan a unique celebration for the 20th anniversary of serving its headquarters community, Terre Haute, Indiana. Company president Scott Womack, who had often held in-store events to raise money for one or two local charities, wanted to make this a fundraising opportunity for a larger number of community organizations. Coincidentally, the same month as the anniversary, a competing restaurant was to hold a grand re-opening at a location a few blocks from IHOP, and it was hoped a special event would detour customers from choosing the competitor over IHOP.

Womack and MillerWhite Marketing devised and implemented a month-long program, Celebrate 20! The restaurant partnered with 20 high-profile charitable organizations that it would highlight on specific weekdays throughout the month of September. Each organization would receive $1 from each paying customer on its specified day and would have to opportunity to pass out information and collect additional donations in the restaurant's lobby.

MillerWhite handled logistics for the event, serving as the contact point for the nonprofits, coordinating their available dates and finalizing the calendar, providing them with a checklist of their responsibilities and directing them to contact their constituents to visit IHOP on their specific day to increase donation amounts. The firm designed an event logo which appeared on all materials and press releases, created a newspaper ad calendar and e-mail blast featuring all of the nonprofits and their designated days, as well as an event banner, store posters and giant in-store birthday card. In addition MillerWhite coordinated all media promotions, partnerships and public relations, including media advisories, the kick-off program, press releases, a mayor's proclamation, and follow-up PR.

Overall, this program proved to be extremely successful for Womack Restaurants, and for the nonprofit organizations that participated. Each charity received $1,000 to $1,355, based on the customers visiting on their designated days. The competing restaurant's grand re-opening failed to have a negative impact on IHOP sales, which actually recorded a sales increase for the month. Finally, when considering the newspaper coverage, television news stories and radio mentions, the amount of earned media that IHOP received during this promotion far exceeded its monetary investment, and its expectations.