A petrol station hoping to attract attention with an unusual free-fuel promotion certainly succeeded – just perhaps not in the way those behind it had imagined.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The Olvi petrol station in Samara, Russia, decided to offer customers the chance to fill up without paying, provided they arrived wearing a bikini.
There was, however, one rather significant detail missing from the rules: the promotion apparently didn’t specify that the person wearing the bikini had to be a woman.
And it didn’t take long for a number of men to spot the loophole.
Faced with the prospect of getting their fuel for free, male customers began arriving at the petrol station wearing bikinis themselves, turning what was already an unusual marketing stunt into something that quickly attracted attention far beyond Samara, Bored Panda reports.
Photos from the promotion showed men standing beside vehicles and fuel pumps dressed in bikinis, while some appeared determined to fully commit to the occasion by adding high heels to their outfits.
The special offer reportedly lasted for only three hours, but that was more than enough time for people to take advantage.
Both men and women turned up in bikinis to claim their free fuel, resulting in a queue of customers waiting to fill their vehicles. Some people even appeared to help partners who had remained inside their cars rather than participating in the stunt themselves.
Whatever clientele the petrol station originally expected to attract, the wording of the promotion meant that the men who arrived in bikinis seemingly met the requirement just as well as anybody else.
And the resulting images inevitably found their way online.
The incident sparked plenty of amusement on social media, with pictures of the bikini-clad customers going viral and the hashtag #BikiniDress trending on X (formerly Twitter).
Naturally, people had plenty to say about the scenes.
One social media user compared the images to something straight out of a video game, writing: “When you change your character’s gender in a game in the middle of a mission”.
Another noticed that certain customers had gone beyond the minimum requirements of simply putting on a bikini.
“Some dudes even went the extra mile with the heels,” one bemused social media user said.
Others suggested that, when free fuel is on the table, they wouldn’t need much convincing to take part themselves.
One person wrote: “As a male in California…it’s safe to say I’d strip for a free fill-up nowadays with the damn taxes”
The pictures also inspired jokes playing on Russian stereotypes and military imagery.
A X user wrote: “Me and the boys refuelling our government issued T-34s”.
Another added: “They had to come in a group, to get fuel for their tanks, with the Russian anthem playing in the backdrop”.
Even the obvious fire-safety considerations of standing at a petrol station provided material for another joke. “Those hot bodies are a fire hazard,” one person joked.
For Olvi, the entire episode proved just how unpredictable a publicity stunt can become once customers are given the opportunity to interpret the rules for themselves.
Because – if you’re offering something as valuable as free fuel – people are going to pay very close attention to the small print.
Featured image credit: Pexels/Engin Akyurt (Free-To-Use)
