Caution: bathroom humor ahead! Here’s what a few smart marketers have learned about catering to people’s on-the-go lives: Open a public potty, create buttloads of goodwill. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) It started with Charmin’s sparkling-clean toilets in Times Square at holiday time. An overwhelming success, it’s become an annual event, with more amenities and media gimmicks added each year. Now, a new player on the Left Coast promises to help out roadside pee-pee dancers in the Los Angeles area with a tricked-out rolling john called the Bathroom Truck. Backed by a group called the Coalition of Food Trucks, the designer potty has started making a splash, so to speak, traveling behind some of the town’s most popular food trucks. (Exotic food on wheels has become a phenom in this car-crazy city, and the Bathroom Truck intends to tail the likes of Fish Lips Sushi, Baby’s Badass Burgers, Kogi BBQ and Nom Nom, among others.) Features include comfy Tempur-Pedic seat covers, cushy Charmin paper, a bidet and an attendant with a strong stomach and a bunch of primping items and Lifesavers. Since the coalition is a non-profit group, sponsorships have to be in the offing. Charmin could go for an East Coast-West Coast domination of the mobile potty business, which would be a natural. Or some other brand could wade in. Hat tip to Thrillist for pointing out the new sanitation station.
—Posted by T.L. Stanley