7 Eleven Jumps into the Political Advertising Realm

7 Eleven has joined the political scene with a race of its own: you can now “vote” for Obama or McCain by grabbing a blue or red coffee cup with the name of your candidate on it. When you get your java in the morning, you can now let everyone know which candidate you support. And, 7 Eleven also gets some publicity in the meantime. Pretty good marketing, if you ask me! 7 Eleven has managed to help people cheaply declare which camp they are for while giving them something they would have bought anyway: a cup of coffee.

Results of each day’s “race” at 7 Eleven are uploaded at a Web site created just for the occasion: 7-Election.com. Results are tallied at the register: each cup has a different bar code that is used to count the results. The Web site even has a map of the United States of which you can roll over each state that has 7 Eleven stores (30 of them) to find out who’s winning. Right now: it’s almost all Obama all the time.

7 Eleven claims to have predicted the last two elections, so this faux race might actually give us a good indication of who our next president will be. Check out this blog for nifty charts that show 7 Eleven’s last two presidential election numbers. 7-Election will continue until Election Day on November 4.

Undecided? 7 Eleven still provides unmarked cups as well as a red, white and blue Big Gulp cup.

In a press release announcing the third 7 Eleven poll, 7-Eleven President and CEO Joe DePinto stated: “When 7-Eleven held its first 7-Election eight years ago, we had no idea what the final results would be or how popular the cup poll would become. While we don’t bill this as a statistically valid study by any means, it does reach Americans in their hometowns, on their way to work, after school or just going about their everyday lives. 7-Election provides an interesting daily snapshot of the election.”

7 Eleven isn’t the only company who has capitalized on the election. Many bakeries use different color icing on sugar cookies to keep count of votes and simply use a chalkboard behind the counter to display their current “race” numbers.

If coffee or cookies aren’t your thing, California Tortilla is offering a “McCain-Chilada” made with mesquite chicken, Mexican rice, tortilla strips, cheese, salsa and shredded lettuce wrapped in a tortilla. It’s smothered with green enchilada sauce, sour cream and cilantro. Or, you can choose an O-Chili-Bama Burrito that comes with Mexican rice, tortilla strips, salsa and shredded lettuce like McCain’s Chilada, but adds turkey chili and jalapeno peppers. California Tortilla says it’ll tally the votes each week.

And hey, why not get into politics the fun way? I haven’t found any negative feedback about these marketing tactics – everyone can tell the companies are just having fun. It’s not a bad idea to add something like this to your business.

Presidential-Election Negative Ads 2008: “The Least Successful Ever”

Negative advertising in an election year is always expected. Some in the media think it’s only been happening in recent years, but as far back as Lincoln and Jefferson, name-calling and rumors were spread each election year among the presidential hopefuls. Lincoln was accused of being a son of a slave. Federalists cautioned people not to vote for Jefferson unless they wanted incent taught in the schools.

Grover Cleveland, elected twice, had to get past a major scandal of his day – fathering a child out of wedlock. But political scientists are saying that 2008’s presidential-election ads “could be the most negative since the dawn of the television era,” according to an October 16 article in The Wall Street Journal. On the flip side, the same political scientists are saying that “they may also be the least successful negative ads ever.”

McCain is running more negative ads than Obama, and it’s not doing him much good. Obama is still ahead in a majority of polls going into the second half of October.

Rule #1 of negative campaigning: it must be about an issue already worrying voters. McCain and Obama are bringing up past associations, like Obama’s connection to William Ayers and McCain’s 1980s savings-and-loan scandal. Voters don’t care about what happened in the past – that’s not going to affect them in any way depending on who gets elected President. What people care about are ongoing issues today that might affect them in the near future.

Negative Ads Aren’t All That Bad
Negative ads can be good in a way, according to political scientists. Negative ads are usually about the issues, at least more so than positive ads. Attack ads are also more “likely to contain more information, back up their claims with evidence and delve into details,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

Negativity Not Fought Breeds More Negativity
If negative ads by one candidate aren’t challenged by the other candidate’s negative ads, that doesn’t stop the negativity. The candidate that starts the negative ads will continue to escalate and put out more attack ads. So, both candidates end up mudslinging, just to keep their own campaigns afloat. “There’s no penalty for deception. If anything, there are short-term rewards,” says Bookings Institution scholar Darrell West.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “almost all of McCain’s ads and one-third of the Obama ads were negative.”

Obviously, even though people say they don’t like negative ads and negative news, that is what sells. That’s what people pay attention to. Newspapers wouldn’t put devastating news on the front page if that wasn’t what the people wanted. Voters this year are especially riled up for change with the economy, the Iraq war, medical insurance paying less and people losing their jobs. 

Even if this year’s negative ads are the “least successful,” that doesn’t mean they aren’t successful at all. Think about it: which election ads come to mind when you think all the ones you’ve seen so far? I bet it’s a negative one.