NEWS: 7-Eleven Becomes Kwik-E-Mart; Hilarity to Ensue?

CULTURE: 7-Eleven Becomes Kwik-E-Mart; Hilarity to Ensue?

Yet another story from the low-culture, oddities-of-advertising front: art imitates life, life imitates art, and sometimes they just all kind of slosh together in a PR frenzy. In a move that is either crazy desperation or cross-marketing genius, certain 7-Eleven convenience stores across the U.S. are metamorphosing into one big giant living caricature of themselves: the immortal Kwik-E-Mart.

Interesting, interesting. This is being done, of course, to coincide with the late-July premiere of The Simpsons Movie. It's a tactic called "reverse product placement," apparently, and it's all very meta: the convenience store chain is hoping that, by showing that they can gamely make fun of themselves, they can boost interest in themselves as a real store, while at the same time selling more throughout the month-long promotion by touting their real product as something that only exists in the imaginations of a decade's worth of obsessives. Something like those awful Harry Potter jellybeans, only tasting decidedly less of earwax and vomit. (Well, hopefully, anyway--it is still convenience store food, after all.)

Not that the whole thing is totally fun-and-games and without conflict, of course. It's easy to make fun of yourself with a box of Malt-O-Meal relabeled KrustyOs, but when it comes to peoples' impressions of that certain Kwik-E-Mart employee so dear to our hearts, it's can be somewhat of a touchy subject.

I'm pretty curious about whether existing employees had anything to do with the chain's decisions on which locations would get the full Kwik-E-Mart treatment, but I doubt they'll have tracked it.

I do think it's cool that things didn't get bogged down in an overly-PC spirit in that respect, as that would be pretty much antithetical to the whole oeuvre of the show. There is a single concession, however, that they had to make, and it's a sad one.

Lame, Bargerhuff, lame. Well, I suppose you can't have everything, even in the land of semi-make-believe.


_DictionaryGirl_'s computer is finally back from the "repair depot," and while it's still pretty broken, she's a little less grumpy now and can finally return to her regularly somewhat-scheduled writing. Yay!

wow that must be fun to see, hope you find Apu on a store near you too
damn i want duff beer

I must say I fell for the Kwik-E mart scheme...
But what can I say getting a can of Buzz Cola (Which tasted rather odd) and getting a squishee seriously made my life haha.

The only bummer is they didnt sell Duff beer.

http://flickr.com/photos/rdr07/sets/72157600590001691

Here's a bunch of pictures for one of them. I didn't take them, but thought it was pretty cool.

Beat me to it, I was gonna say, I don't even drink beer and I want to buy a six-pack of Duff just to have it.

I loved it!

WTF no Duff????

I can't get enough of that wonderful Duff.

there is a kwik e mart near my house is burbank, ca. personally, i think it's a fun idea. also, @ hot topic we sell duff beer (but it's an energy drink) and flaming moes (also an energy drink) :-)

each store should have it's own Apu!

"Thank you! Please come again!"

+1000

i'm gonna try and go down there this weekend. hopefully they don't sell out of Buzz cola and Krusty-Os

this is all bringing me one step closer to my dream of living in a cartoon and being a Simpsons character.

I wonder if potential robbers will dress up like Snake?

There is one a couple of miles from my house. I'm gonna go pick up a squishy on the way home.

I hope they did this with the local 7-11s here. I haven't really checked yet.

Locate a Kwik-E-Mart

Bollocks! The only Kwik-E-Mart I could find around here is way over in the douchebag-yuppie part of town! Bastards! They couldn't do the 7-11 that's two blocks from my house? And no Duff? I don't even drink and I think thats fucked up!

it does look pretty cool... and am I the only one to think those sprinkle donuts look delicious ?

Biggest let down in the history of let downs. Seriously ruined my day reading that.

eek, i have a kwik e mart around the corner. i sure hope the nuclear power plant isnt next!

WHERE! Is there more than one in L.A.?

The L.A. one is on Venice and Sepulveda. I went today, there was a line to get in. Thankfully it didn't take too long, but then the line to get squishees was ridiculous. It seriously took like 20 minutes. They had a limit of 3 per customer on the Buzz Cola, which I might add tastes more like Coke than it does Pepsi (thank god) and the Krusty-O's are just your normal run of the mill Fruit Loops. No jagged metal "O" though.

Oh and the doughnuts are delicious. They're 'homerific!"

That they have chosen to skip Arizona, home of many 7-Elevens, is insulting.

I demand a Squishee!

almost TWO decades DG! me and a friend counted tonight... the shows first season was 89-90 (not counting the tracey ulman years), which means theyve finished thier 18th consecutive year of broadcasting half hour shows.

theres also a contest to vote which of the 30 or so springfields in america is THE springfield.