GLENDALE, Calif. -- As part of an elaborate April Fools' Day prank, 7-Eleven Inc. distributed nearly 200,000 free, limited-edition "The Finger" candy bars at participating on Tuesday supposedly to celebrate the name change of Nestle USA's Butterfinger because the "old" name implied clumsiness. The joke was actually to promote the launch of the newButterfinger Comedy Network on Yahoo! Video.
The renamed candy bars were handed out at more than 2,000 7-Eleven stores in 10 major markets across the country, including [image-nocss] New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Seattle, Dallas, Boston and Miami.
The prank was reminiscent of 7-Eleven's "rebranding" of a dozen stores to the "Kwik-E-Mart" name to promote The Simpsons Movie last year.
A limited number of the bars will be listed on eBay Giving Works, eBay's dedicated program for charity listings, through April 8. All proceeds will benefit A Place Called Home, a youth enrichment center located in Los Angeles.
The Butterfinger Comedy Network features videos from across the web and is a hub for consumers looking for online comedy, spoofs, pranks, standup, original segments and other "crazy stuff." Users can watch, comment on and share videos.
Meanwhile, MorningNewsBeat had its own fun at Dallas-based 7-Eleven's expense. In its April 1 issue, the retail industry newsletter ran the following faux news item:
"Sources tell MNB that 7-Eleven this week will announce the creation of a superstore division within the company, designed to create what insiders are calling 'the ultimate convenience store on a grand scale.' Store designers and marketers reportedly have been working on the concept in a basement office at 7-Eleven's Texas headquarters for more than a year, and have a crystallized a 180,000-square-foot concept that is said to be a radical rethinking of the term 'big box store.'"While details are not scheduled to be made public until late this week at the earliest, MNB has been told that the new concept will be carved into 'pods,' with each pod featuring a separate entrance that will serve shoppers primarily interested in that specific category. Interactivity will be encouraged, with the chain looking to turn customers into partners in the development process, which it believes will then turn them into advocates for the concept to other shoppers. Deliveries will be made to the concept via an underground parking garage that will be specially designed to a) handle large trucks, b) keep the rigs out of sight, and c) allow the company to create an kind of campus-style ambience around the concept, which is being called, for the moment, '7-Eleven On Steroids' (a banner that is for internal use only, though insiders say they indeed expect the concept t be performance-enhancing when it comes to the company's bottom line).
"Among the offerings scheduled to be part of the new format are a fresh produce section that will be heavily skewed to pre-sliced and packaged fruits and vegetables (with single-serve salads said to be a major component); high-quality single-serve meals that are being branded with the Food Network in order to raise the level of both perceptions and delivery; and a pickup counter for products—including groceries—ordered from Amazon.com. The dry grocery selection is said to be edited for convenience purposes, with the emphasis on both reduced brands and sizes; 7-Eleven is said to be working on an extensive private label program in both foods and nonfoods (using Staples' private-label program as a model). One intriguing notion—a pod called 'The Men's Store,' which will feature male-oriented food and nonfood selections, plasma TV screens perpetually tuned to ESPN, and what is being called the 'largest men's specialty magazine selection ever seen in one place'."
7-Eleven quickly notified the trade media that the new format was a prank.
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