Domino’s Pizza in Russia had announced a promotion that was supposed to run for two months offering lifelong free pizza to anyone who tatted up with the company’s logo. But that morning, it posted on social media that it was ending the promotion—although those who were being inked right then could still make the midday cutoff.
The company, it turned out, had underestimated how much Russians love free food.
“More than a million people would have come to demand pizzas” if the promotion had lasted the full two months, guessed 24-year-old Natalia Koshkina, who got a small Domino’s logo tattooed above her left kneecap, just below a skull embellished with roses and butterflies. “After all, this is Russia,” she said.
Bargains and freebies are powerful draws here. The Soviet period—where foodstuffs were often cheap but in short supply—and the economic hardships of the 1990s have conditioned many Russians to pounce on a good deal. A stagnant economy has left average disposable incomes stuck around $500 a month, and Ms. Koshkina said the free pizza would help her put aside a bit of money from her salary working at a piercing and tattoo parlor. “Who doesn’t want free food?” she said.
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Domino’s announced the launch of its tattoo promotion—named “Domino’s Forever”—on its page on VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook , on Aug. 31. The conditions were minimal: Applicants should post a photo on social media of a real tattoo in a visible place with the hashtag #dominosforever. They would receive a certificate allowing them to receive 100 free pizzas a year of any size for 100 years, the company said.
Russians hurried to tattoo parlors. Tattoos in Russia have long been associated with criminals, who have used them to depict status in the underworld. But in recent years, they have become part of a broad assimilation of American hipster culture that includes craft beer, skateboards and boutique barbershops.
Many opted for the simple domino of the company’s logo, which tattoo artist Mr. Gonyshev said he offered for 2,000 rubles, or around $30, and took about 10 minutes to ink.
Others wanted it worked into compositions. Mr. Gonyshev inked a cuffed hand holding the logo with the phrase “Prisoner of Freebie,” riffing on a classic “Prisoner of Love” tattoo design. Others put them on pizza slices, skateboards or pizza boxes carried by a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
On Sept. 3, as the photos piled up on social media, the company tightened the rules: The first 350 people to post photos of their tattoos, which should be at least 2 centimeters in size, would receive 100 medium-size pizzas a year.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/dominos-offered-free-pizza-for-life-in-exchange-for-a-logo-tattoo-it-found-people-really-like-ink-1537120377?mod=hp_featst_pos3
Oops.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty messed up. Tells you how bad the Russian economy is.
ReplyDeleteIn my misspent youth I worked for a franchise as a delivery driver. There was a brief period when they did advertise 30 minutes or free. Too many people were trying to get free pizza by giving wrong addresses or arguing with the driver that it was late when it wasn't. They switched to $3 off if it was late.
Sometimes a customer would ask if the the $3 came out of the driver's pocket. I would answer "not really" and sometimes they'd say keep it. The real answer was no. Also when people wanted a pizza delivered outside of the delivery area, we tell them the store's insurance wouldn't cover the driver if they delivered outside the area. They accepted that answer. It wasn't true, but it sounded believable.