In its latest move to cement ties with Generation Y, convenience retailer 7-Eleven will partner with Facebook game producer Zynga to populate its store brands and cups with access codes for use with Zynga’s most popular games, Farmville, Mafia Wars and YoVille.
From June 1 through July 15, shoppers will be able to purchase store products ranging from Slurpees to Big Bite hot dogs and get codes for the games, which currently rank as some of the most popular available in the Facebook network. Players can then go to a Web site and put in those codes to unlock downloads of virtual goods that can be used in game play. Users will need to have a Facebook account and to connect to that account to download the goods to their games.
The campaign, which will involve about 200 million redemption codes on 35 7-Eleven products, is one of the biggest product promotions the chain has ever done, and the first retail partnership Zynga has ever signed.
All the store products involved in the Zynga promotion are 7-Eleven brands, with no third-party brands involved. But some store brands have been re-branded for the duration of the campaign; for example, the pint container of 7-Select Vanilla Ice Cream will be relabeled and stocked as Farmville Vanilla ice Cream. 7-Select Orange Soda has also been re-skinning with a YoVille theme.
Interestingly, while some of the items have been re-branded, almost no explicit 7_Eleven branding is occurring among the virtual goods unlocked by the codes. Using the code from Farmville Vanilla pint, for example, unlocks a “Neapolitan cow’ in the Farmville game. The closest thing to branding is a virtual Coffee Cart in Farmville that carries the red and green 7-Eleven colors on its awning.
That light branding touch within the game world was a conscious decision on the part of 7-Eleven, which consulted with Zynga on the virtual goods to be offered to players. “We felt they all had to be things that fit very organically into the game worlds,” says Stephanie Hoppe, 7-Eleven’s senior director of marketing. “We didn’t want to force-fit anything. Authenticity’s very important to this audience. So we co-developed items that we thought customers would really want to have.”
however, another level of play in the promotion offers more elaborate virtual items, known as “Uber Gifts”, to fans that redeem eight lower-level codes and then complete a specified action within one of the Zynga games. One of these Uber Gifts is a branded 7-Eleven Slurpee machine available to YoVille players who accomplish the challenge.
The aim of the campaign is to increase 7-Eleven’s recognition and visits among the generation of millennials born in the 1980s and ‘90s. “Millennials live and breathe in social networking and social gaming,” Hoppe says. “We want to deliver experiences that are unique and fun to capture that audience.
Hoppe says spreading the promotion over three of Zynga’s most popular titles will work to effectively target three sub-groups among young gamers, since “Mafia Wars” primarily appeals to males and “YoVille” to girls, while “Farmville” attracts players of both sexes across a relatively wide age spectrum.
The Zynga campaign will be promoted in national TV ads and in spots specially made for MTV programming, as well as on radio and in print.
Zynga has grown into a social gaming powerhouse, with more than 239 million registered players accessing its games every day. The company recently signed a contract to provide social games within Facebook for the next five years.
Among other recent promotions aimed at online youth, 7-Eleven is currently offering a Web video series, “Road Trip Rally”, and syndicated to other sites. The three-week contest pits two teams driving across country from San Francisco and Miami and meeting up at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend.
The teams, two pairs of amateur drivers, can only stop for food and gas at 7-Eleven stores along their respective routes, and they can also earn points for their team by winning challenges that link to 7-Eleven’s brand partners in the contest; for example, by stacking the tallest tower or Snickers bars or by loading the largest number of 20-ounce Dr pepper bottles into their car.
Webisodes and challenges are filmed daily by production company Happy Little Guillotine Films, whose RVs travel alongside the contestants and upload the day’s content to the contest web site. Fans can follow the cars’ progress on Twitter or via an interactive map on the site, where they can also view the point counts and see the lists of things the contestants have bought along the way.
As with the Zynga in-store promotion, the Road Trip Rally is intended to connect 7-Eleven with younger customers who are hungry for Web video content. It also cements the brand’s ties to Indy racing: 7-Eleven has sponsored Indy racing League driver Tony Kanaan for eight years and fellow driver Danica Patrick for two. The Road Trip cars are decked out like the 7-Eleven Indy cars, and Kanaan and Patrick will be present to welcome the contestants to the motor speedway this Friday.
While the Road Trip campaign is not specifically being promoted in 7-Eleven stores, the items purchased will be featured in store placements, and the images of Patrick and Kanaan will be used on signs for the chain’s iced coffee, snacks and beverages.
Network
