Now that’s a soapy “meatball.” Food delivery service DoorDash has partnered with casual dining chain East Side Marios to create a new Meatball Bath Bomb scented with pleasant notes of rosemary and lemon (but thankfully not fried meat) that turns its users’ bathwater a light pink when it “explodes.”
The promotion arose out of a DoorDash request to its social agency, Toronto’s Church+State, to create awareness and buzz around its partnership with East Side Marios.
“They wanted us to make sure that it was contextually relevant for the current environment, so we kind of went to thinking about self care,” said Sara Audrain, group account director for Church+State. “We can’t think of anything more self-care than bubble baths, carbs and pasta.”
While this particular meatball isn’t edible, there’s ample evidence to suggest that eating food is the bathtub isn’t as outlandish as it sounds (and if anyone from Google is looking, my searches were purely for research purposes).
Anyway, eating in the bath was one of the scenarios presented in Loblaw Companies Ltd. most recent “Food Lovers Unite” campaign, and there’s also debate about its merits on Reddit (including a subreddit called Bathcheese, dedicated solely to eating cheese in the bath). Recording artist Tove Lo kicked off her 2014 song “Habits (Stay High)” with the line “I eat my dinner in my bathtub,” and the idea is also for the basis of a children’s book by Angela Medearis.
Church+State worked with an Ontario soap company to create 2,000 of the bath bombs. “Briefing the bath bomb maker was certainly one of the more interesting conversations I’ve had,” adds Audrain, who said the development process started with the smell and ingredients before moving on to texture and overall appearance.
“We knew we didn’t want it to be too real,” said Audrain. “We had a pretty tight vision for it, but they really knew what we were after and they turned it around pretty quickly.”
Ruckus Digital is supporting the launch with PR and influencer content, while the bath bombs are being given away free with every East Side Marios order over $35 on DoorDash when people use the promo code MEATBALL.
Free? Does that mean the partners are taking a bit of a bath on this promotion?
