Here’s a s̶h̶a̶m̶e̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ creative marketing stunt: &pizza, Washington’s quickly growing pizza chain, is offering to pay for customer’s tattoos. All you have to do is download their new mobile app! And spend $1,500 on pizza. So yes, there’s a catch.
The &pizza Rewards app launches Friday, and offers several “incentives” beyond gratis ink. Customers can reach three levels of loyalty: “troublemaker” (spend $250), “rebel” ($750), and “maverick” ($1,500). The last category is rewarded with a free tat in a design of the customer’s choosing from H Street’s British Ink Tattoo. Because nothing proves maverick status like eating 169 customizable pizzas, give or take a premium topping or two.
Other rewards include &pizza bomber jackets and “branded dog tags”, in case you want to do a little free advertising/need identification in the battlefield that is the fast-casual pizza world.
Apparently six &pizza “tribe members” (employees?) have already “signed their allegiance to the brand in & ink,” according to a release. I’d rather have dominoes from Domino’s or whatever the kids at Mellow Mushroom are smoking, but hey, take what you can get. In this case, for life.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
