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Like any CMO, 7-Eleven’s Marissa Jarratt is effusive about the brand she markets. Unlike most of them, however, Jarratt is also refreshingly forthright—at least when it comes to 7-Eleven’s signature brand, the Slurpee.
“I like to say it’s the drink that there’s really no good reason why it should exist,” she said. “But also, that’s exactly why it should exist.”
In other words, the world is hardly desperate for another soft drink. (To be technical, Slurpee’s classification is “frozen carbonated beverage.”) Then again, since when did anyone need an excuse to drink something that tastes good?
The first batch of 7-Eleven’s flavored slush wormed its way into a plastic cup in 1966, meaning consumers have been drinking Slurpees for close to six decades.
But America is no longer the country it was in 1966. For one thing, convenience stores (still a relative novelty in the postwar era) have morphed into a $706 billion industry with 150,000 locations and well over 100 brands. Each of these serves up myriad branded beverages, which means even 7-Eleven’s iconic drink has no shortage of competition.
And that’s one of the reasons why, today, 7-Eleven is taking the wraps off a rebranded Slurpee.
While it’s still the familiar cup of shaved ice available in amusing and occasionally inexplicable flavors including Blue Blunder, Fulla Bulla and Awa Awa Ukulele, the product itself sports a new look and vibe. Everything from the Slurpee logo to the cups themselves have gotten a facelift.
“Beverages are a competitive category—there’s so many different options,” said Jarratt, the featured guest on the latest episode of the Speed of Culture podcast, hosted by Suzy founder Matt Britton. “So why would someone choose a Slurpee over something else?”
“Anything Flows,” 7-Eleven’s new campaign created by Dentsu accompanying the drink’s revamp, aims to furnish some of those reasons.
On screen with Slurpee
Stylistically, the 15- and 30-second spots (which will run on TV as well as online platforms) focus predominantly on colors—highly saturated shades of blue, red and yellow that, though they correspond literally to flavors like Blue Raspberry, Cherry and Pina Colada, also extol the virtues of doing your own thing. Eccentricity and personal style are on offer here, just as much as fruit flavors.
The “Cherry Red” spot, for example, features four women of a certain age wearing red track suits and slipping their Slurpees as they glide through a hotel casino looking self-consciously fabulous. In “Cool Blue,” a muscular bloke wearing blue swim trunks, blue slippers and a blue terrycloth robe saunters poolside past gawking onlookers while he sips a Slurpee.
Actors in these spots are demographically varied in every sense—age, gender, ethnicity and even apparent levels of affluence. One of the ladies in “Cherry Red” happens to be riding a motorized wheelchair. While the diversity and inclusion element doesn’t hit you over the head, it’s a clear appeal to consumers of every stripe.
“Each character is moving through the world with kind of a vibe all of their own, which we think is very reflective of the Slurpee product experience in the Slurpee brand personality,” Jarratt said.
The improvised coolness of the ads are also a good fit for a beverage that was invented by accident.
The legend of the frozen Coke
Omar Knedlik was a World War II vet who saved up his military pay to get into the ice cream business. By the end of the 1950s, he owned a Dairy Queen in Coffeyville, Ka.
The place had seen better days: Its soda fountain was either broken or nonexistent (stories vary), forcing Knedlik to improvise by putting Coke bottles into his freezer. The resulting slushy Cokes were a hit.
Eventually, Knedlik built and sold an “Icee machine” to make the beverages. 7-Eleven purchased 100 of them in 1965 and, after inking a licensing deal with Icee, began selling its own version of the slush drink the following year.
As a result, it’s not hard to find slush-based drinks everywhere these days. The Icee Company still sells its Slush Puppies. Some 12,000 stores feature Alligator Ice’s slush drinks, too. In the U.K. and mainland Europe, Frozen Brothers sells slush machines paired with major soft drink brands like Coke and Fanta.
What distinguishes Slurpee is its name (coined by adman Bob Stanford), its far-out flavors (Sticky Icky and Gully Washer are among the notables) and, of course, its promotions.
These include decades’ worth of limited-edition collectible cups emblazoned with everyone from Spider-Man to Pikachu to Annie Oakley. And for over 20 years now, 7-Eleven has hosted National Free Slurpee Day on July 11. Anyone who walks in the door can get a free 12 oz. Slurpee in the flavor of their choice.
In fact, if all goes well, the “Anything Flows” campaign will pay added dividends this year because the giveaway is literally bigger than it’s ever been. In 2021, 7-Eleven purchased the Speedway convenience store chain for $21 billion. Speedway’s 3,800 units in 36 states took 7-Eleven’s presence to 14,000 units.
The essential seller
Whimsical as the Slurpee makeover may be, it’s also a serious investment in the long-term viability of the 7-Eleven brand.
“About two thirds of the trips to our stores are driven by a beverage. Customers come to our stores looking for something to drink,” Jarratt said. Since 1980, a popular choice has been the Big Gulp, which some credit for helping to start America’s love for supersized portions.
But the Slurpee will always be 7-Eleven’s personality beverage. It’s made cameos in movies ranging from Pretty Woman to Dumb and Dumber. The drink’s appearances in Netflix’s Stranger Things are too numerous to mention. There’s also the music video for “Gucci Gang,” where Lil Pump steps out of his Lamborghini Gallardo with a Slurpee in hand. Even the universally dreaded “brain freeze” is a colloquialism that 7-Eleven copyrighted (at least in reference to beverages) back in 1991.
As Jarratt put it, “Slurpee has really become embedded in American culture.”
