- A new company called Model Restaurant says it provides models with free meals in top restaurants in exchange for the “ambience” they create.
- The models are also encouraged to post on Instagram, but not to disclose that the meals are complimentary.
- The restaurants pay to be part of the Model Restaurant service.
- Hiding that something was gifted goes against generally accepted guidelines that were recently created for Instagram influencers.
- The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) told INSIDER it’s “concerning” to hear a company is encouraging clients to ignore these rules.
- Visit INSIDER’s homepage for more stories.
If you follow influencers, celebrities, and models on Instagram, it’s now incredibly normal to see the words “ad,” “#gifted,” and “in partnership with” as you scroll through your feed.
Indeed, thanks to new regulations and a changing culture in the world of social media marketing, high profile individuals are now obliged to disclose when a post is sponsored content, and are also encouraged to reveal when they’ve been given freebies.
However, one new company is bucking the trend.
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Model Restaurant, which currently operates in London, Milan, and Miami Beach, says it provides models with free meals at top restaurants in the hope that they post on Instagram about their meal afterwards - and that they don't disclose that the visit was complimentary.
The models "pay" for their meal "with their beauty," the company's founder Giovanbattista Cimmino told INSIDER - the idea is that the glamorous models boost a restaurant's image, which he believes is a form of payment in and of itself.
Models have to be signed to an agency to be accepted
Model Restaurant, which was launched by 29-year-old entrepreneur and "digital marketing specialist" Cimmino earlier this year, operates via a private Instagram account which currently has just 233 followers.
To apply, you simply request to follow the Instagram account. The company will then check to see if you're actually a professional model, and accept you if you are.
At the moment, the company is only accepting female models, but Cimmino said this may change in future.
Cimmino said Model Restaurant currently receives around 30 requests from people wishing to join the service each day, but only about 20% of applicants are accepted.
"The other 80% are people trying to be a model or an actor, everyone wants things for free," said Cimmino, who also founded hospitality-based social media marketing company Social Ask two years ago.
"We accept any professional, verified model," he added. "You don't need to be Kendall Jenner, it can be enough to have a few thousand followers, provided you're signed to a model agency."
Once you're accepted, Model Restaurant sends you restaurant options based on where you're located.
The company then organizes the visit for you.
Only high-end restaurants make the cut
Foto: Giovanbattista Cimmino, founder of Model RestaurantsourceModel Restaurant
For Cimmino, it's important that the restaurants the company works with are truly high-end - if it's not a restaurant he already knows, he'll do research and check for reviews.
"We want fine dining restaurants, we want to be an exclusive platform," he said.
He told INSIDER the company currently works with an even split of restaurants who have applied, and ones they have contacted directly, but Cimmino would not disclose names.
He said what a restaurant will pay for the service varies - ranging from £250 ($315) to £750 ($945) a month - mainly depending on the size of the eatery, though Cimmino didn't reveal how many model visits they get for that price.
"It can be less or more depending on many different things," Cimmino explained. "A 36-seat restaurant can't pay like 100-seat restaurants can. We make bespoke agreements.
"If a chain has three or four restaurants worldwide, maybe we can do a better price," Cimmino continued. The service is not extremely expensive. It's a monthly fee, very reasonable. No one wants to lose money by taking space away from paying customers."
The models "pay" by helping create ambiance
Cimmino considers Model Restaurant to be the middle man between restaurants and models.
"It's so important in the restaurants of today to have a great ambiance in the restaurant itself," said Cimmino.
And he believes having models seen dining in the establishment plays a contributing role.
Although there are no restrictions as to when the models can frequent a restaurant - he said Saturday nights are perfectly viable - there's also the possibility that they'll help fill seats at quieter times.
"It's an asset for them to have a table of pretty ladies in the middle of the week, posting about the restaurant, paying with marketing," Cimmino said. "You don't lose money because the table was empty otherwise."
He also believes in the power of Instagram for the success of a business.
"When you look at a restaurant's location tag on Instagram and at the top you see pretty ladies, important people, famous people, that's what's going to influence someone's choice to go there," Cimmino said. "Social media is your new website. A website is now secondary to Instagram."
Models can't bring their non-model friends
Clearly, the main perk for the models using the service is the free meal, and there's no limit to how many they can eat - provided they post on Instagram afterwards.
"The models for us are a real asset," said Cimmino. "If they want to go for dinner every day, nobody will stop us doing that. At the moment for the volume of models compared to the restaurants we have, on average a model will eat twice a week, which is fine. In future this could be an everyday opportunity."
However, you can't bring your non-model friends and family to enjoy the meal with you - the restaurants are only interested in hosting models who are on the platform.
"They need to be on the app because we need to have control of that," explained Cimmino. "Otherwise the restaurant will complain to us. The restaurant pays to have models dining in the restaurant, so then if they show up with people we haven't spoken about, it can be damaging for us."
The models get the same menu as everyone else, and there's no limit to how much they can order, but they're expected to be reasonable. "If they order a £10,000 ($12,650) bottle of wine, the restaurant will not be happy," Cimmino said.
"We tell the restaurants they need to treat the models well. You need to give them a nice dinner which is the same as other customers."
One model on the platform (who asked to remain anonymous) told INSIDER she "loves it" because "being a model today is difficult."
"I believe they provide an incredible service giving myself the opportunity to dine in the best restaurants of my city," she said, adding that she uses Model Restaurant twice a week on average.
Read more: Instagram influencers are hiring life coaches to help them deal with the pressures of the platform
Once a model has enjoyed the free meal, she isn't forced to post on Instagram about the visit, but most do.
The model we spoke to said she's "happy" to do so because "almost every time" the restaurants are "incredible."
"When you go for dinner you ask for the bill at the end," explained Cimmino. "For the models, their way to repay the restaurant is with their image partially, but we need to prove the image to a bigger audience, not only the people there, so with a post on Instagram."
The models are asked not to tag the restaurant, but simply to add the location - and, crucially, they're told not to disclose that their visit was complimentary.
The models are asked not to mention Model Restaurant in their posts, either.
"You don't need to say 'thank you X, thank you Y,' you just post that you are there, which is different [to other platforms connecting restaurants and influencers]," said Cimmino.
"The restaurants want the models to be there, but they don't want other people to know that they're not paying and are getting a complimentary dinner. They need to look like real customers."
In fact, he says many restaurants actually call to confirm they won't be outed for giving away free meals.
Authorities are "concerned"
The rise of social media advertising has created a whole new area for advertising authorities to consider. Last year, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) even released new guidelines for influencers to follow.
The guide states that if you've been paid in some way (including freebies) and the brand has had some form of editorial control over your content, you must disclose a post is an ad.
However, under the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), consumer protection legislation still applies if something has been gifted but no editorial control has been enforced.
"The CMA expects influencers to disclose when they've received any form of monetary payment, a loan of a product or service, any incentive and/or commission or have been given the product they're posting about for free," the guide reads.
Matt Wilson, Senior Media Relations Officer at the ASA, told INSIDER Model Restaurant would probably need to be considered on a case-by-case basis - although the models posting content could be given fines for not disclosing the free meal, they'd likely just be spoken to first and educated on good practice.
"There's the real threat of things being ratcheted up if they're not willing to play ball but in the first instance it's about approaching these things in a proportionate manner and saying, 'Look, these are the rules, this is where you've got it wrong, remove that post and this is how you get it right going forward, this is our preferred approach,'" Wilson explained.
If a model posts about a visit to a restaurant because they are obliged to in return for a free meal, and they wouldn't have posted about it otherwise, Wilson says it's debatable whether that could come under editorial control.
"The ASA would judge whether or not that equated to control because ultimately you've got that free meal because you are going to post about it," he said.
Wilson was particularly concerned about Model Restaurant's insistence that models don't disclose that their meals are free.
"It's really, really concerning to hear a company is encouraging their clients to do that because ultimately they're encouraging them to break the law," he said.
It's hard to know whether a meal was gifted or not by looking at an Instagram post, but the ASA is constantly monitoring social media and receiving tip-offs.
"If it came to our attention that the rules were being broken, and deliberately so, then ultimately there will be regulatory repercussions for those involved," Wilson explained.
"Obviously we're going to be reliant likely on people having concerns about these posts. We would certainly flag it up to our regulatory partners and certainly conversations would be had with that firm.
"They're potentially getting their clients into serious trouble. So on their head be it."
'Just a platform'
The Model Restaurant set-up certainly breaks with the current trend for more transparency on Instagram, but Cimmino doesn't see a problem with this.
When INSIDER asked Cimmino about the ASA and CMA guidelines, he said: "I want to clarify that models are not paid to post, so in our case there's no monetary payment."
He went on: "From my side, I'm just like an Uber for the models, connecting the models to the restaurants. I'm just a platform. The integrity of what they're doing is between the restaurant and the models, I'm just putting them in connection."
In fact, he believes the reason Model Restaurant is doing better than competitors is specifically because the free meals aren't disclosed.
In terms of whether the concept is a bit disingenuous, Cimmino, who has his sights set on expanding the company to Mykonos, New York, and Hong Kong, said: "Honestly I think there are so many bad things around now in the world, I wouldn't worry too much about this.
"It's providing an honest service, we don't need to lie. The value of things in 2019 has changed completely since 20 years ago. Ambiance is an asset for many different businesses."