Pizza for a Tattoo
Domino's Russia offered free pizza for 100 years to anyone who tattooed the logo on a visible spot. They had to kill the promo within days — too many people actually did it. Cheap stunt, infinite earned media, slightly horrifying.
The story
In September 2018, Domino's Russia promised 100 free pizzas a year for 100 years to anyone who got a visible Domino's logo tattoo and posted a photo with the hashtag. They expected a few hundred takers. Within five days, more than 350 people had real, permanent Domino's tattoos on their bodies, and they had to amend the rules to cap it at 350 winners. The story ran in every business magazine on earth — Forbes, Bloomberg, BBC — because a brand had accidentally proven that some customers will brand themselves for cheap pizza. The campaign cost Domino's roughly $570 per lifetime customer in pizza, against tens of millions of dollars of global press coverage. Ethically queasy, commercially genius, and a permanent reminder that customer loyalty has a much lower price than most CFOs assume.
Why it worked
It found the small fraction of customers who would pay (in skin) to be part of the brand, and turned them into the campaign.
Takeaway for marketers
The cheapest media is the kind your customers print on themselves. Cap the offer before you find out how cheap it really is.