The Future of Ads

How do you advertise for something as simple as coffee?

Easy: Just sell something else!

By turning the mundane task of picking a cup for your morning coffee into “7-Election 2008”, 7-Eleven has managed to sell not just coffee, but support for your favorite candidate as well.

Think about it: If you walked into work one day and all around you were cups with candidate’s name on them, you would probably want to go out and get a cup of your own to show support for your side.

Now take that scenario and imagine it happening in thousands of offices all across the country, and then imagine that the results are posted online for everyone to follow, and you’ve got yourself quite the promotion.

The design of the cups is also a key element of the campaign: They’re bright and simple, allowing the candidate’s name to overshadow the company logo, but that makes them conversation starters, and those conversations will more than likely include the name “7-Eleven” in them at least a few times.

In addition, posting the results of the 7-Election online allows 7-Eleven to pass along “Fun Facts”, such as:

• In the 2000 7-Election, our George W. Bush coffee cup outsold Al Gore’s cup by just 1 percentage point.
• The 2004 7-Election results tracked identically with published national election results: 51% for George W. Bush and 49% for John Kerry.
• 7-Eleven was the first convenience store to
  • Open its doors 24 hours a day
  • Serve fresh-brewed coffee to go
  • Offer a self-serve soda fountain and super-size fountain drinks
• 7-Eleven sells more fresh-brewed coffee than anything else – 1 million cups each day. That’s more than 10,000 pots of coffee an hour, every hour of every day of the year.

7-Eleven also managed to loop in USA Today, and publishes the updated tally in the paper each week. This allows 7-Eleven to do print advertising for their coffee that is not only useful and interesting to the readers, but it provides added value rather than just being a blatant ad.

By combining online, in-store, word-of-mouth and print advertising into one campaign that promotes more than just their coffee, 7-Eleven has managed to make every cup count with 7-Election 2008.

The Good:

• Simple idea is easy to understand and manage.
• Combining elements of online, in-store, word-of-mouth, and print creates multiple ways to interact with the product.
• Taps into a current hot topic for added relevance and urgency.

The Bad:

• Company must refrain from seeming too political.

The Future:

• Products become promotional tools for other causes, ideas or people, encouraging customers to buy the product as a show of support.

7-Election 2008

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