Million Dollar Lunch

In 1999 a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco called Casa Sanchez put together a promotion that involved offering free lunches for a life-time to anyone that tattooed their logo, a sombrero-wearing mariachi boy sitting on a corn-cob permanently on any part of their body.

Their ambition was to generate customer loyalty and boy were they successful. They had 40 people get the tattoo and those same 40 people started coming in every single day for their free lunch.

The Sanchez family finally decided to do some calculations and worked out that based on 40 people with $8 of free meals per week, the marketing promotion could cost them $5.8 million in lost sales for the business over 50 years (the life of the people involved in the promotion).

My thoughts...Plan and budget before you do a promotion and next time buy temporary tattoos.