The Simpsons Movie: 7-Elevens Become Kwik-E-Marts to Promote Film's Release

7-Eleven Inc. turned over a dozen stores into Kwik-E-Marts over the last weekend. The Kwik-E-Mart name is known as the convenience store from the famous television series the Simpsons. Run by Apu, an Indian store owner, the Kwik-E-Mart sells such things as Squishees, Buzz Cola, and Krusty O's brand cereal. Select 7-Eleven stores will also sell these cartoon creations at local stores as an attempt to promote the new Simpsons movie due to debut on July 27th, 2007. The retail chain 7-Eleven put the number into the millions as they are taking the bearing of the costs to do such a promotional action. The best part about the whole experience is that 7-Eleven is able to poke fun of itself. The idea of transforming a whole store into a Kwik-E-Mart is simply genius, and it's something that other stores aren't really doing. I give 7-Eleven credit for the idea, and I think that it is a great way to stir up interest in both 7-Eleven and the new Simpsons film.

The promotion will last just about a month, but the whole idea has been known for sometime now. It's hard to keep so many suppliers and distributors quiet. Not all stores will be adorned with the Kwik-E-Mart logo, in fact only about 10 stores will be lucky enough to have their store transformed. The whole idea is ground breaking. Usually a movie will place products within the film to gain additional money for production. For example, the main character in an action movie may pull a Coke out of his bag after he has saved the girl, and gulps down the Coke as if he has never had a Coke in his life. The idea behind the 7-Eleven and Kwik-E-Mart promotion is that instead of putting products into the movie, they are making the fictional products from the movie available to the real world. One of the only products not to be sold at 7-Elevens is going to be Homer Simpsons favorite brand of alcoholic beverage, Duff beer. Fox, owner of the Simpsons, felt as though the PG-13 rating of the movie meant that they should cater to that audience. The selling of beer just didn't seem appropriate. Fox also had a great idea, they want to run a contest to let one fan of the Simpsons be drawn into a future episode of the show. What better place to find a large group of Simpsons fans than to find them at a real life Kwik-E-Mart? For the owners of 7-Elevens, they can hear the cash registers ringing already.