Picture this: You're standing in front of your fridge, hungry, and you press a little magnet. Within minutes, a pizza is on its way. No app, no phone call, no menu browsing. Just one button. Sounds like science fiction? In 2012, it became science fact in Dubai.

Red Tomato Pizza, a local pizzeria, launched what they called the VIP fridge magnet—VIP standing for Very Important Pizza. The concept was brilliantly simple: customers registered their favorite pizza order online, received a small Bluetooth-enabled magnet, and stuck it to their refrigerator. When hunger struck, they'd press the button on the magnet, which connected to their smartphone and sent their preset order directly to the restaurant.

Why Dubai Was the Perfect Testing Ground

According to Red Tomato owner Rehan Shah, Dubai was ideal for this innovation because "everyone wants everything delivered." The city's culture of convenience and tech-forward mindset made it the perfect place to trial what they called "the first ever one-touch delivery system."

The technology itself was straightforward but clever. The magnet synced with any Bluetooth-enabled device—usually a smartphone. Once paired and attached to the fridge, pressing the button triggered a message to Red Tomato with the customer's pre-registered order. The restaurant would send a confirmation text giving customers a brief window to cancel if they'd accidentally triggered it (or if someone else in the household had pressed the forbidden pizza button).

A Marketing Home Run

The campaign exceeded all expectations. Within weeks of launch:

Over 70% of magnet recipients became repeat customers
Red Tomato completely ran out of magnets and had to manufacture more
The innovation won multiple international advertising awards, including recognition at Cannes Lions
Media coverage spread globally, with tech blogs and news outlets from ABC to Tom's Guide covering the story

The VIP magnet solved a real problem: decision fatigue. By eliminating the need to browse menus, debate toppings, or even unlock your phone, Red Tomato removed every barrier between craving and satisfaction. It was impulse ordering perfected.

What Happened to the Magic Magnet?

Here's where the story gets less exciting: the VIP fridge magnet appears to have been a limited promotional campaign. All evidence suggests it was distributed in 2012 as a marketing initiative aimed at loyal customers. While Red Tomato Pizza still operates locations in Dubai and Sharjah today, there's no indication the magnets are currently being distributed or available for purchase.

In a way, the magnet was a victim of its own success—or rather, a victim of timing. By 2012, smartphones were becoming ubiquitous, and food delivery apps were about to explode. Within a few years, services like Talabat, Deliveroo, and Uber Eats would make ordering from dozens of restaurants nearly as easy as pressing a button. The novelty of single-touch ordering became standard practice.

Still, the VIP fridge magnet deserves recognition as an early experiment in Internet of Things (IoT) ordering—predicting the Amazon Dash buttons that would launch in 2015 and the voice-activated ordering through Alexa and Google Home that followed. Red Tomato was ahead of the curve, even if the curve eventually caught up and passed them by.

Related Tags