They say there's no such thing as a free meal but, if you're beautiful, you can eat for free at this Brazilian chain of fast food restaurants.

It may sound like an offensive concept at first, but it's actually quite the opposite. The restaurant Spoleto told every female customer she didn't have to pay for her meal as long as she could affirmatively answer the question, "Are you beautiful?"

The customers were handed mirrors by cashiers who hoped every woman would admit to her beauty — serving as a self-esteem booster for the day. The gimmick was the restaurant's way of celebrating International Women's Day on March 8, but the ad that accompanied it was only recently posted to YouTube.

The restaurant's experiment is part of a recent trend of businesses engaging with female empowerment as a form of advertising. In April, Dove released a "Real Beauty" campaign that asked women to describe themselves to a forensic artist who sketched them. The women then compared the sketches with those inspired by other people's descriptions of them. The inspiring ad blew up on the Internet, becoming the most watched ad ever.

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It seems Spoleto was hoping to take a page out of Dove's book. But it's not fully evident if the restaurant's viral ad had the same uplifting results. The restaurant reported that throughout the day 500 women confessed their beauty and ate for free (with a 35% increase in sales, according to Fast Company), but the blog Eater did suggest that, since the restaurant has 200 locations, 500 is a somewhat low total number.

The campaign is also leaving a bad taste in people's mouths for focusing solely on external beauty. After all, these women were apparently using their looks to cash in free stuff.

What do you think about the recent trend in female-empowerment-focused advertising? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image courtesy of YouTube, artplan