CHICAGO — In planning a promotion for one’s convenience store, it can’t hurt to go all out.
All out, as in outer space.
That’s exactly what 7-Eleven Inc. did to celebrate its 94th birthday in August, sending a Coca-Cola Slurpee toward the heavens via helium-filled weather balloon from a Saginaw, Mich., store’s parking lot. A mounted camera recorded the travels of the Slurpee in its commemorative cup.
7-Eleven boasted that it successfully delivered a Slurpee to space, and websites near and far covered the promotion.
But did the Slurpee really reach outer space? The question is open to some debate. According to collectSPACE.com, the frozen beverage’s flight “fell short of reaching even the lowest definition of outer space by more than 100,000 feet.”
But with a Google search for “Slurpee in space” showing 7.9 million hits worth of publicity to date, 7-Eleven probably got the mileage it hoped for out of the promotion.
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