Hot Dog! It's National Slurp-Day

7-Eleven
Published: July 2nd, 2008

7-Eleven® Celebrates Friday, July 11, with Free Slurpee® Drinks, National Hot Dog Month with Big Bite® Meal Deal

First Frozen Monster Beverage Ever Not Sold in a Can

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--It's that time of year when the sun is hot and the Slurpee® drinks are free-zing – emphasis on the FREE part. July 11, aka 7/11, is the day that 7-Eleven, Inc., the world's premier convenience retailer, celebrates its birthday and says "thank you" to its customers with free Slurpee drinks at participating stores. This year's 7-Eleven® Day marks the company's 81st birthday. Customers can pour their favorite Slurpee flavor in colorful, 7.11-ounce "Birthday" cups throughout the day, while cup supplies last.

7-Eleven is the home of the Big Bite® Oscar-Mayer all-beef hot dog and the number-one retailer of grilled hot dogs. And to celebrate National Hot Dog Month in July, participating 7-Eleven stores are offering a quarter-pound Big Bite hot dog and Big Gulp® drink for just $1.99 throughout the entire month, a real value at a time when consumers' incomes may be stretched dog-gone thin.

But there's more… New for July is the first ever Monster Energy Slurpee drink, called Black Ice. Black Ice is a black-colored energy Slurpee drink packed with a full-load of Monster's potent energy blend. This is the first frozen Monster beverage and the first variety not sold in a can.

"In appreciation of our loyal customer base, we started giving away Slurpee drinks on our 75th birthday in 2002," said Jay Wilkins, 7-Eleven brand manager for Slurpee and Big Gulp® fountain drinks. "Customers thanked us, and we've been doing it ever since. Now July 11, or 7-Eleven Day, has become Customer Appreciation Day or try-your-favorite-Slurpee-on-us day."

Viral marketing through the newly redesigned www.slurpee.com web site with its Slurpee Nation social network along with Slurpee street teams in select cities and store events across the U.S. play a big part in spreading the "7-Eleven Birthday/Customer Appreciation/Free Slurpee" message.

Every day is Slurpee Day in Kennewick, Wash., recently crowned the new Slurpee capital of the world, but on Free Slurpee Day, 7-Eleven Franchisee Don Marriotto expects his store to be swamped. "Even though we will be giving away free Slurpee drinks on 7-Eleven Day, July 11 also will be our biggest Slurpee sales day of the year," he said. "We will have customers lined up outside waiting to get in the store and to the Slurpee machine to create their favorite frozen concoction."

Marriotto's number-one Slurpee-selling store offers 12 different flavors of the popular beverage, and he expects to have the local ABC-TV affiliate broadcasting from their store that birthday morning.

On the subject of celebrating birthdays, here are some favorite 7-Eleven milestones:

• Slurpee – 1967, 41 years. 7-Eleven actually began selling frozen carbonated drinks two years before coming up with the Slurpee moniker, named for the straw's slurping sound.


• Big Bite – 1988, 20 years. Although 7-Eleven has been selling grilled hot dogs since the early 1970s, the Big Bite name was coined 20 years ago when Oscar Mayer created an exclusive spice formulation for the winning wiener.


• Big Gulp, Super Big Gulp, Double Gulp fountain drinks – 1976, 1983 and 1988; 32, 25 and 20 years, respectively. 7-Eleven was the first to introduce self-service soda fountains to Americans, which mirrored the success of its hot coffee in to-go cups.


• To-Go Coffee – 1964, 44 years. Coffee was 7-Eleven's first venture into the world of self-service beverages. It must have been a good idea. Today, most convenience retailers and quick-service restaurants offer some type of self-service beverages.


• Franchised Stores – 1964, 44 years. The same year 7-Eleven introduced hot to-go coffee on the East Coast, they looked to expand the 7-Eleven convenience chain to the West Coast with its first franchised, or owner-operated stores. California, the first state offering 7-Eleven franchises to individual entrepreneurs, today boasts more 7-Eleven stores than any other state. The company now offers franchising across the country, by making company-owned stores available to store managers, and negotiating with operators of other branded stores to bring them into the 7-Eleven retail family.

Convenience retailing began simply enough in 1927 when a Southland Ice Company employee started selling milk, eggs and bread from his ice dock in Oak Cliff, a suburb of Dallas. Since that inauspicious start, "convenience" has become a big business. The small ice company has grown into a major international retailing chain with more than 7,500 7-Eleven stores in the United States and more than 34,300 stores worldwide.