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When Twitter Promotions Go Wrong: IL Pizzeria Offers Food For Flashing

from the just-gtfo dept

Thu, Sep 12th 2013 8:06pm — Timothy Geigner

By now you should be familiar with the concept of advertising being content and content being advertising. If you're new to the class, the idea is that clever, timely, and wanted ads can be every bit as entertaining and drawing as entertainment content itself. It's essentially what makes a good ad: something you want being presented in the way you want it, all without pissing you or a large section of the customer off base. Oreo serves as a wonderful example of this, having put out a timely Twitter quip as an ad in last year's Super Bowl.

But make no mistake, you can do this wrong. And one pizzeria in Champaign, IL, home of the University of Illinois, got it horribly, horribly wrong.

If you're a female customer who goes to Drew's Pizzeria in Champaign, you can apparently flash your boobs and walk away with some free pizza. Since sober girls usually won't flash people for free pizza, it seems that these boobs-for-pizza trades unsurprisingly happen more often at night, according to a Craigslist post.

Drew's Pizzeria's Twitter account, now deleted in an attempt to bury its head in the internet sand, offered such wonderful incentives to eat their pie as:

"FREE PIZZA for the next pair of nips right now, ladies only!"

"Pizzas $5 right at Drews or free for titties."

"WE WANT MORE TITS!!! #showusyourtits #uiuc FREE PIZZA"

Now, we have a couple of problems here. First, while you won't find a guy with a deeper appreciation of the female anatomy than I, screaming how much you want to see boobs at your pizzeria using the all-caps faux pas is akin to the creepy guy in the corner of the strip club who keeps asking one stripper exactly what time she'd be leaving out the back and whether she's allergic to ether. And who didn't see the eventual backlash coming? Large swaths of men may think of free-spirited ho-bags when the term "college girl" is uttered, but that's bullshit. College is also the place where feminism spreads, where activism finds roots, and where the love of battling a corporation is second only to a love of a cancelled class. Of course people rallied against these idiots.

But, hey, they cancelled their Twitter account, so they're clearly sorry. I imagine we'll get a claim of a hack by the Syrian Electronic Army any moment now. In the meantime, there has to be a better-behaved business that will sell you some pizza in rural Illinois.

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Filed Under: pizza, promotions

30 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2013 @ 8:24pm

No beads for you Tim
Flash-for-beads has slid into occasional Midwestern flash-for-beers. And from there, well, what goes better with free beer than free pizza?

As marketing, it's as tasteless as a lot of cheap college-town pizza, but hardly worth a moral panic. I bet some girls can turn it around, too. Any guesses? Show us your dick for a free all-beef frank! Drop your trousers for $5 off your spaghetti with 2 meatballs!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2013 @ 8:49pm

Flashing for beads has long been a staple of Marti Gras in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Maybe the big difference is that they don't advertise for it.
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out_of_the_blue, 12 Sep 2013 @ 8:50pm

How you SEEM to have changed on feminism, Timmy!
Reminded me of your comment from a Starbucks flap:

Why can't companies be more creative? Obviously, if you hire only attractive baristas and make them work naked, there will be no reason to use their internet connection for surfing porn.

Problem solved. Now, time for another Pumpkin Spice Latte....
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20101001/15475611255/starbucks-staffer-claim s-he-was-fired-for-turning-off-wifi-to-block-porn-watchers.shtml#c94

Which I asked about and you specifically confirmed:

I want my Pumpkin Spice Latte served to me by a naked hottie....
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20101001/15475611255/starbucks-staffer-claims-he-was- fired-for-turning-off-wifi-to-block-porn-watchers.shtml#c271
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2013 @ 8:57pm

Let me guess women are outraged. Yet if they were hungry would flash those fun bags in a second. Here is the truth ladies. You are are sex objects. If you weren't Fox News wouldn't put sluts in 5" heels and short skirts closest to the camera. Weather Chanel women wouldn't be hot milfs. They would be fat. And cheerleaders wouldn't exist sideline of every NFL game. I mean what is more humiliating and making someone a sex object than a cheerleader? Nothing. And you women love it! You use it all the time when you want something and then pull out the other card to gain something with some fake outrage. Worse than any African American (I hate that term) playing the race card.
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That One Guy (profile), 12 Sep 2013 @ 9:07pm

Re: How you SEEM to have changed on feminism, Timmy!
I'd get your sarcasm and/or humor meters checked, they seem to be flat-lining.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2013 @ 9:30pm

Re: Re: How you SEEM to have changed on feminism, Timmy!
You weren't counting on out_of_the_ass not missing the point of an article completely, were you?

out_of_the_blue just hates it when due process is enforced.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Sep 2013 @ 9:59pm

Re:
You seem nice.
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McCrea (profile), 12 Sep 2013 @ 10:21pm

Re:
It was a just a ploy by bead manufactures? Doh.
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That One Guy (profile), 12 Sep 2013 @ 10:39pm

Re: Re:
And single too I'm sure.
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ethorad (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 12:59am

How sexist
Ladies only? I demand my free pizza for flashing my man-boobs!

Or more likely, I demand free pizza or else I'll flash my man-boobs ...
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Arthur Moore (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 1:51am

I doubt it was a hack. However, I'd put good money on it being a drunk or disgruntled employee.

I honestly feel sorry for the store, but think that they could have handled things better. Instead of shutting down their account they could have used it to issue an apology. The most likely possibility is the owner/manager knowing nothing about social media, so when things went wrong the instinctive reaction was to just cancel the account.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Sep 2013 @ 1:56am

there has to be a better-behaved business that will sell you some pizza in rural Illinois

Are you sure? It is Illinois we are talking about here.
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Ninja (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 4:12am

Re: Re: How you SEEM to have changed on feminism, Timmy!
No, he shouldn't fix it, I'm laughing loud out of the sheer stupidity. And he reminded us of an incredibly funny part from our Tim ;)
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Ninja (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 4:44am

And yet indians live naked without a problem. And we consider ourselves evolved ;)

Still I laughed at the idea. A $20 pizza for just a flash? I'd be in hahahaha
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Dark Helmet (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 5:02am

Re: How you SEEM to have changed on feminism, Timmy!
Reminded me of how you apparently lost your sense of humor when the pre-natal doctor accidentally stuck your mother's epidural direction into your brain....
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Sep 2013 @ 5:37am

That advertisement plan...
...went Tango Uniform
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Ninja (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 7:25am

Re: Re: How you SEEM to have changed on feminism, Timmy!
Careful, he'll spin that up as if you are pro abortion a few months in the future.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Sep 2013 @ 7:28am

wowZa
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Sep 2013 @ 7:37am

Too bad the promo was cancelled. Masnick could've cleaned up bouncing those man boobs.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Sep 2013 @ 7:55am

Re:
I laughed when you thought they sold pizzas for $20. They advertise 3/$13.99, and it's probably still not worth it. I haven't been to this particular place, but it seems typical of campus area restaurants that sell food that is offensively bad.

As a former resident of Champaign, I can assure you that there are places there which sell $20 pizzas that are worth it (Papa Dels comes to mind, there might be others too). But they don't ask you to flash them.
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Ninja (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 8:08am

Re: Re:
Actually I used a random value. A cheap pizza here costs around $10 (converted from BRL), the real good ones go for $20-$25. Really if they charge $5 for a pizza it wouldn't be worth boobs. Besides if they want boobs they can use the intertubes for their physiological needs!
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Kionae (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 8:09am

As a Champaign resident, this doesn't exactly shock me. This is a college town, and most of the people working at places like Drew's (which is a locally-owned business, not a chain, and is right smack dab in the middle of campustown, so it caters largely to the campus community) are college students. College students occasionally do stupid things. From what I've read in the local paper, this is something the night shift came up with... not the owners.

But that aside, there are far better pizza joints around here. Papa Del's is 100 times better than Drew's.
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art guerrilla (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 8:30am

silly and tasteless...
...but on the other hand, they got to see boobies ! ! !
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Nina Paley (profile), 13 Sep 2013 @ 8:51am

Good ol' Champaign-Urbana
Since I moved back to Urbana-Champaign, I keep seeing Champaign businesses on Techdirt. First it was that bus company that sues its customers, now it's this pizza place.

I have no idea why anyone would eat inferior pizza here, as we have some of the finest pizza establishments anywhere. Papa Del's, as mentioned above, is excellent, as is the newer, thinner Manolo's. But there are always some morons stumbling around Campustown. Maybe Drew's customers enjoy flashing more than they like good pizza.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Sep 2013 @ 12:25pm

Re: No beads for you Tim
That comparison would work better if there was a culture that commodified male bodies the way female bodies are. Nice try, though.
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Rekrul, 13 Sep 2013 @ 1:56pm

Someone has to say it;

Pics or it didn't happen! ;)
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Sep 2013 @ 3:14pm

Re:
Too bad the promo was cancelled. Masnick could've cleaned up bouncing those man boobs.

Hahahahhaha.... Jane Russell eat your heart out.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Sep 2013 @ 4:40am

"...large section of the customer off base."

Just how large are they that you can knock them partially off base? Or did you mean customer-base off?

Anyway, most men would crave pie after seeing all the boobies. Hair pie that is.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Sep 2013 @ 1:33pm

I wonder if we'll hear more about this later. For instance... I wonder if any Drew's Pizza employees save cell phone or surveillance footage of these boobs.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2013 @ 1:46am

I'm female. I'd show my boobs for pizza. They're only breasts. What's the big deal if anyone sees them? This criticism robs people the chance of free pizza. No one forced anyone to show boobs.
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