Chipotle customers are incredibly excited for a new free meal opportunity.
Chipotle held a special event called “Tatted Like a Chipotle Bag”, which is an internet saying due to the Chipotle bag design, where all tattooed customers could get one free entré with buying one. It took place on Friday, March 13th from 3:00 to 4:00 PM in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, and Germany. It did not have to be a real tattoo and could have just been drawn on. Five free items per check were allowed, with one tattooed person per item free. This ended up being the highest single day sales in Chipotle history.
The promotion was inspired by the Friday the 13th “flash tattoo” tradition, when tattoo shops drop “flash sheets” of small, pre-designed tattoos to commemorate the day. The content generated over 12 million impressions and 380,000+ engagements on social media with fans everywhere planning on going to this short, one hour event. The tradition began on the Friday the 13th in 2008 when Oliver Peck, Elm Street Tattoo co owner in Texas, tattooed the number 13 on 415 people in 24 hours for a marathon tattooing session. This held the Guinness World Record for most tattoos in a single day.
The phrase “tatted like a Chipotle bag” began going viral in 2019 during the Super Bowl halftime performance where fans were comparing Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine’s tattoos to the artwork on Chipotle’s to go bags. It quickly went viral with customers sharing how exciting this was all over Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. There were hundreds of thousands of people asking if it was real and thought this was very inclusive of Chipotle to do. It was highly looked up upon that it didn’t need to be a real tattoo and customers thought it was more convenient.
Many customers who went during the time frame got stuck with long lines and ingredients running out from the insane number of people who rushed to go. Long wait times of over an hour with some customers missing the deal. This was also a huge deal for the employees who were flooded with orders to handle, including free ones. If you didn’t go super early, you could have missed some of the toppings that were in high demand. People were also saying that it was chaotic and disorganized, also challenging to get their orders at all. They thought there was a better method for this. In the end, the “Tatted Like a Chipotle Bag” event was a huge success and brought heavy amounts of attention to the food brand for their generosity. It was a fun, moneymaking event that customers really seemed to enjoy and be a part of. Social media can bring awareness to anything, especially if it relates to food and the tattooed community