Snapchat’s photo-sharing service is joining 7-Eleven’s social media mix for the convenience retailer’s annual Slurpee giveaway and birthday celebration, a blend of the public’s love of free items with an aggressive rewards strategy in a mobile-optimized environment.

Each year the party extends to social media where 7-Eleven sees its traffic increase by double digits on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. With the addition of Snapchat’s geo-filters to its social media toolkit, and the exclusive debut of a music video on mobile-optimized Slurpee.com/SPK, 7-Eleven is continuing an aggressive mobile strategy that aims to get consumers to download its mobile application in exchange for food and drink rewards.

“Between the two, I’m betting that more are interested in free food or drink than a geo-filter,” said Jeff Hasen, CEO and founder of Gotta Mobilize, Seattle. “Seven-Eleven is wise to push app downloads with the offers, but it would be more inclusive if it enabled those in its text-based loyalty club to participate as well.

“That way those with either a feature phone or disinterest in getting the 7-Eleven app could take part,” he said.

Rewarding week
The convenience retailer will give away free small Slurpee drinks offers to app users on Saturday, July 11, and augment that event with 7Rewards Week, July 12-18, during which 7Rewards members will receive a free 7-Select food or drink valued under $2 with any 7-Eleven cup purchase. By requiring customers to download the free mobile app, 7-Eleven is continuing a tradition of rewarding guests on its birthday with in-store offers.

Participating stores will serve the free Slurpees from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. local standard time, Saturday, July 11 while supplies last.

The chain’s free mobile app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play.

Slurpee’s collaboration on Twitter with Mondelez’s Sour Patch Kids candy.

The free 7-Select offers will automatically appear as a coupon in the “Scan and Save” section of the app.

When a 7-Eleven customer visits a store for the convenience retailer’s 88^th birthday Slurpee giveaway, they will have the option to apply a fun, branded 7-Eleven filter overlay onto their photo or video Snap before sending to family and friends.

This is the 13th year 7-Eleven has rewarded guests on its birthday with in-store offers. Besides adding Snapchat’s geo-filtering feature to its social media mix, the chain this week also launched the Sour Patch Slurpee Selfie Challenge in which fans can post photos on Twitter how they eat their Sour Patch Kids candy and drink a new Sour Patch Watermelon flavored Slurpee for a chance to win prizes through Aug. 31. Participants can go to #spkslurpeeselfie to join in on the fun.

Slurpee lovers can be among the first to watch the new Weekend Warriors music video from the upcoming digital movie musical Summer Forever, starring singer/songwriter Megan Nicole, who has more than 600 million YouTube views and three million YouTube subscribers.

The music video will premier exclusively on mobile-optimized Slurpee.com/SPK on July 10 for 24 hours.

In March, 7-Eleven drove purchases of its beverages while simultaneously rewarding customers for their loyalty by rolling out the 7Rewards platform within its mobile application, proving that food and beverage marketers must have a specific loyalty strategy to retain existing consumers.

The 7Rewards program enabled guests to receive a free beverage for each six cups they purchased, a move that would reward frequent coffee purchasers and entice new consumers to become regular customers.

The program was designed to update its previous system of offering guests rewards cards, with “punches” each time a beverage was purchased. With the change, cashiers simply scan a barcode in the app for a “punch” to appear.

The brand revamped its app in anticipation of the launch of 7Rewards, moving users’ scannable barcades and virtual punch cards to the app home screen for a streamlined, user-friendly interface.

Ramping up
In May, 7-Eleven ramped up its mobile loyalty platform abroad by rolling out handheld QuickScan devices in Philippines bricks-and-mortar locations to read bar codes on consumers’ smartphones and enable them to redeem their rewards more quickly, pointing to mobile loyalty’s important role for food and beverage marketers.

Promoting Slurpee giveaway on Facebook.

“The Snapchat program lends itself to a contest,” Mr. Hasen said. “That way, not only will the incentive to be to share with friends and family, it could be to win even more product.”

Final Take
Michael Barris is staff reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York