Cafe 51, a popular burger joint in Melbourne, Australia, is offering anyone the chance to receive a free burger per day, for the rest of their lives, if they get a scale tattoo of one of their delicious burgers, anywhere on their bodies.
“Tattoos are for life, so why shouldn’t burgers be free for life too, right?” the #freeburgersforlife campaign page on the Cafe 51 website states. “It’s simple, pick a burger, any burger from our current menu and get it tattooed anywhere on your body. You are then forever part of our #burgerfamily and you qualify to get this burger absolutely free everyday for the rest of your life. Coz we reckon that since you love us enough to join our #burgerfamily by getting a tattoo of one of our burgers, we love you enough to give you a free burger every day for the rest of your life!”
The controversial promotional stunt had been teased for about a month and finally launched on Sunday night. By Monday, over 450 people had registered, and at the time of this writing, over 3,000 Cafe 51 are waiting to get their favorite burger tattooed. Considering all the media attention the campaign is getting and the fact that Cafe 51 plans to take registrations all through October, the number of applicants will probably reach into the tens of thousands.
Photo: Burgerlove/Instagram
“Never expected such a massive response but I guess it’s testament to how passionate people are for our burgers,” Cafe 31 co-founder Steve Agi told Mashable. Obviously, offering free burgers to everyone who registers for the promotion is a bad idea, from a business perspective, so Cafe 51 originally decided to randomly pick 10 winners. But the unexpected positive feedback has made them rethink their plans.
“We were talking about limiting it to 10 but given that it only went live last night and we are planning to take registrations for all of October, it may blow out to a little bit more,” Steve told The Weekly Review. “We will see how things go.”
Photo: Burgerlove/Facebook
Agi claims they came up with the idea for the promotion after a number of patrons got their burgers tattooed without them having to ask. “We’ve already got half a dozen people who have had burgers tattooed on themselves. They sort of did it and that was what triggered it,” he said. “They come in and roll up their sleeve or lift up their shorts leg. They already did it without us having to ask.”
The rules set up by Cafe 51 are fairly simple. All applicants have to do is agree to get a scale tattoo of their favorite burger anywhere on their body and be willing to to get photographed and filmed for promotional purposes to be used online and in print by the organizer. Also, in order to receive their free burger every day, the winners have to agree to show the tattoo on demand to store staff.
Photo: Burgerlove/Facebook
Steve Agi mentioned that the offer is limited to one burger a day, and that the burger depicted by the tattoo will be the one the winners will receive for free. So they have the option to choose from a variety of different size burgers to permanently stamp on their bodies, from the simple mini burger, which measures about seven centimeters in diameter and four centimeters tall, to the giant Hulk burger, which is about 34 centimetres tall and can “feed a small village”. It all depends on how hungry people reckon they’ll be every day and how much space they have available for the tattoo.
If you’re over 18 and love Cafe 51 burgers, you can register for the campaign here.
Photo: Burgerlove/Facebook
