7-Eleven pairs in-store efforts with microsite for Slurpee celebration
Convenience store chain 7-Eleven is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its well-known slushie drink with a bevy of mobile-first activations including a microsite, Snapchat filter and hashtag to encourage customers to invent new ideas for Slurpee cups.
A mobile-optimized site appeals to the younger consumer, the target demographic for Slurpee products, which heavily uses GIFs to encourage participation in its birthday campaign. The chain is hoping to draw in customers by handing out Slurpees in anything that resembles a cup for only $1.50 and is amping up promotion through the microsite, and a social media campaign in which users post photos of items they are using for Slurpee cups.
"Leading brands, like 7-Eleven, understand that effective connected marketing requires focus and consistency of message, and engagement, across all channels, including online, social, mobile and most importantly through physical in-store and related media," said Michael Becker, managing partner at mCordis. "Consistency reinforces the brands message and purpose; it helps build trust.
"This is true given that fact that a brand is a collection of all the experience people have with it, not just the physical product," he said. "Social media can create awareness and drive store traffic for a fun initiatives like the 7-Eleven Bring Your Own Cup (#BYOCupDay) Slurpee program.
"The in-store-signage helps reinforce the message as well as direct the optimal experience for the brand and customer alike."
Celebrating Slurpees
For instance, one image shows an aerial view of someone drinking a Slurpee while walking on a sidewalk that changes colors with text that reads ?that ain?t no sidewalk that?s the new Airheads Xtremes Rainbow Berry Slurpee,? to promote the new product. Users can share the images on social media through integrated sharing buttons.
A geofilter will also be available to Snapchat users while at 7-Eleven locations on those days, for more user-generated promotion. Users can also follow along on the dedicated Slurpee Snapchat account by adding REALLYSLURPEE.
Microsites on mobile
Levi?s continued its expansion of digital offerings by also rolling out a mobile-optimized microsite featuring content from five emerging musicians and corresponding video tutorials on how to wear the brand?s latest denim styles (see more).
Farmers Insurance bumped up brand awareness through the launch of an omnichannel campaign containing Facebook carousel ads and a mobile-optimized site as well (see more).
"There are a lot of moving parts in a program like this," Mr. Becker said "Some best practices include consistency in execution, clear and conspicuous messaging and call-to-actions across all media, inclusion of hashtags to encourage and direct the conversation and most importantly ample internal communication and employee training.
"This program generates a lot of traffic and people are going to get creative with it," he said. "It is important that the company prepare the employees for the most likely occurrences where they may need information to properly assist people visiting the stores and engaging the brand."