Tattoo Your Ass If You Want Free Beef

It's fascinating what people will do to demonstrate dedication to their favorite brands. One of the more extreme actions you can take is getting permanently inked with a brand's logo or an illustration of its product. Take for example, the intense love surrounding the Beefy Crunch Burrito from Taco Bell; so far there are eight members of the Beefy Crunch Movement who have permanently altered their skin with a depiction of the beef-and-Fritos-filled tortilla as they hope for its return to the menu. Now, however, one brand is bribing people to show their loyalty this way, offering free food in exchange for ink—specifically, an ass tattoo.

In one of the strangest tattoo-based promotions we've seen, Omaha Steaks is offering a lifetime's supply of burgers to one lucky (if that's the word) participant who volunteers real estate on one particular part of their body: their buttcheek.

That's right, if you raise your hand, lower your pants, and volunteer your ass for a "hyper-realistic burger tattoo ... on [your] full bun," you might get picked to be flown out to Southern California to get inked by popular tattoo artist Steve Butcher. The tat will feature a cheeseburger with all the fixings—imagine trying to explain that to your mom—and as Butcher explains in the press release, it's going to have "bigger patties and a juicy, handmade texture."

Juicy patties on your ass. Word. If you're interested in signing up for a chance to win, you can do so here. Of course, this is all to promote something, in this case an Omaha Steaks product called PureGround Burgers, which are patties made with beef from 28-day aged steaks. If you get the tat, though, you don't have to tell people it's a ploy to win free food.

This isn't the first time we've ever seen a company center their promotion on ink. Arby's did once, but only offered free tattoos of Arby's art, and no free food was involved. And McDonald's offered tattoos of a receipt depicting the purchase of a J. Balvin celebrity meal, but mercifully, these were only temporary.

In 2021, California-based burger joint Farmer Boys partnered with local tattoo parlors to offer burger tats. Anyone who took these businesses up on their joint offer was entitled to free Farmer Boys burgers... for one year. And only one burger maximum per week.

I've asked myself if I'd get a giant cheeseburger tattoo on my own ass for a lifetime's supply of free burgers, and I simply couldn't come up with a decisive answer. The upside is, the tat would be in a location I don't generally display publicly (though never say never), and I myself would barely see it unless I were admiring myself in a mirror.

The downside is the likelihood of feeling remorse over the giant fucking cheeseburger on my ass—a reasonable response, I think. Do I really want to deal with being called "Buttburger" for the rest of my life? More importantly, I'm wondering if these Omaha Steaks burgers are delicious enough to sacrifice space on my butt. Is anything, really?

Since Omaha Steaks is far from the first brand to build a promotion around these permanent displays of brand loyalty, we've asked Takeout readers in the past which logo, if any, they'd get tattooed on themselves in exchange for free food. The lively discussion elicited lots of interesting responses. One reader had this to say:

Jack In The Box would pay for itself immediately. I could eat $60 of potato oles from Taco Johns in six months. Negra Modelo would be in the mix. Free beer and munchies for life? Worth it!

Others claimed they'd get tatted up for free hot dogs, beer, Whataburger, and Wawa—one person even said they'd get The Takeout's name tattooed on them just for fun (no, it wasn't me). Interestingly enough, not that many people said they wouldn't do it, so perhaps I'm underestimating the excitement that surrounds free stuff. At the very least, I'm overestimating the value people place on blank, undecorated skin.