The Finnish Red Cross Blood Service offers free blood type tattoos to blood donors. The campaign raises interest towards blood donation and dismantles antiquated misconceptions around tattoos and blood donation.

Many assume that taking a tattoo will prevent you from donating blood. This isn’t true, in fact, there is only a four-

month quarantine following a tattoo – only a month longer than the minimum donation cycle for women.

Since the need for donated blood is constant, and every action encouraging blood donation counts, Finnish Red Cross Blood Service decided to do something that would catch the attention across the country: to offer free blood type tattoos to blood donors.

“We need 800 donors on a daily basis to ensure that there is enough blood for those in need. To raise awareness towards blood donation and dismantle old taboos we decided to hold an event that allowed blood donors to be marked for life.”, says Anne Lind, Marketing Manager at the Finnish Red Cross Blood Service.

“For us, the younger audience, especially young men, are a particularly difficult demographic to reach. The blood type tattoo campaign was a great way to connect with the new generation of donors in a way that genuinely spoke to them”, continues Lind.

Finnish Red Cross Blood Service and Legacy Tattoo held an event on February 2^nd where anyone who had donated blood could come and get a free tattoo that immortalized their blood type. Legacy Tattoo designed six custom designs for each blood type that people could freely choose from.

“We saw this as an important event and message that we could stand behind. The stigmas around tattoos are luckily becoming old news and naturally we understand the importance that blood donation pays in the lives of hundreds of people every day”, says Sailor Andyaka Anton Holmberg of Legacy Tattoo.

The blood type tattoo event gathered more interest than expected and had hundreds of people queuing up hours before the event. The tattoos have now become free to use, with any tattoo parlor in Finland being allowed to make them for anyone interested in being marked for life.

Finnish Red Cross Blood Service
The Finnish Red Cross Blood Service is an independent, not-for-profit organization within the Finnish Red Cross. They’re the only nationwide blood service provider in Finland. Their services comprise recruiting blood donors, organizing blood donation, collecting and testing the blood and producing cellular blood products for hospitals.