In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” CSP Editor Rachel Gignac talks to Neha Nayyar, senior director of loyalty, personalization and shopper marketing at 7-Eleven, and Mario Mijares, vice president of marketing, loyalty and monetization platforms at the Irving, Texas-based chain.
The conversation about 7-Eleven’s retail media network took place in April at CSP’s Retail Media Network Forum in Dallas. Nayyar and Mijares discuss the convenience-store chain's ad channels, retail media partnerships, personalization and more.
- 7-Eleven is No. 1 on CSP’s 2025 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by store count.
“At Your Convenience” brings industry experts and analysts together with CSP editors to discuss the latest in c-store news and trends. From mergers and acquisitions to foodservice and technology, the podcast delivers the story straight to listeners in short-format episodes, perfect for the morning commute or a quick break at the office.
Listen to their conversation above, or read the transcript here, which has been edited for length and clarity:
Rachel Gignac: When did 7-Eleven launch its retail media network?
Neha Nayyar: We launched Gulp Media Network in 2022 with a beta, and 2023 was a full-scale launch. So it's been two-plus years now. Even though it's been a short amount of time, I feel like we've learned and grown so much, and now we are the largest retail media network focused on immediate consumption, and from a convenience perspective, given our scale and our frequency of customers and all the first-party data that we have, we are probably one of the strongest retail media networks in that sector.
Gignac: Why was it important for the chain to be such an early adopter of retail media?
Mario Mijares: I mean, there's a couple of reasons why, but within the convenience industry, 7-Eleven plays an integral part. We're the largest player, the only national chain, and we were at a point in time where we were doing a massive internal transformation with using our customer data. All that customer data we use internally for all the personalization we do, but we wanted to make it available to our vendors. And so at the same time that we launched Gulp Media two years before, in 2021, we launched something called C-Shopper, which is all the monetization of our customer data. So we were getting to the point where a lot of our vendors were analyzing the data, the customers, how are they behaving in 7-Eleven, they were finding opportunities. The question is, well, how do we capitalize on those opportunities? So it was important to launch Gulp Media so they could do that.
Gignac: What forms of advertising are a part of Gulp Media? Like at the pump, digital ads, ads, tell me more about that.
Nayyar: We have multiple ad channels. And I think we're kind of unique and different from big box retailers, Walmart, Target, and Kroger, because we started off in 2023 really focused on offsite. So really focused on using our first-party data to target on offsite channels, the right value message, the right customer at the right time. And in the past two years, we've built a lot of in-store ad channels as well, which includes things like gas station TV, digital menu boards that we have in our stores, and then in-store radio. In-store radio right now is about in 6,000 of our stores, but by July it'll be in 13,000 stores. So it's a great way to get that impulse purchase product and get your value message out to customers who are in and out of our stores within four to five minutes.
Gignac: What is in-store radio? Is it audio with advertisements?
Nayyar: Yeah, so it's audio. So we've been able to put music in our stores, which is just great all around for the customer experience, our associate experience. And after every song, there's about one to three ads that play. And those ads are, we usually try to do less than 10 seconds ads, because again, we just heard in there Art [Sebastian] was talking about how the attention span of customers is now eight seconds, I think. So we're really focusing on tight, clear messaging, but it's really focused on value messaging, two for fours, a new innovation, dollar day deals, things like that. So getting a value message across to our customers so they can hear it and then...it's easier in 7-Elevens compared to maybe like a Walmart or a Target because we have a smaller footprint. So customers can easily within four to five feet move from picking a beverage out, hearing a radio spot about a deal on say chocolates and moving to the chocolate aisle and picking up two chocolates. So we've seen a lot of good impact and results for both our proprietary products internally, because we also advertise our proprietary products like Slurpees and Big Gulps and then also vendor products.
Gignac: How do you work with vendors? How does that process work?
Nayyar: We plan it through our joint business planning process, which is very normal with retailers. We're part of that joint business planning process. We really try to work on annual strategic plans and then figuring out, what are the big bets that, you know, that vendor is doing within our stores and really leveraging all of our ad channels based on what category they're in, what the value offer in, what the product is to help them understand what ad channel would work best within Gulp Media Network. I'm going to say this, no joint business planning process is perfect. I think it's always progress over perfection. But I think now we're getting to a really good spot with our vendors, especially our top 30 vendors, to kind of annually plan, which helps everyone across the board.
Gignac: You said top 30 vendors. So does that mean there's more than 30 who are a part of the retail media network?
Nayyar: Yes, for sure. You know, we're small footprint, but we have a lot of items in our store. So Gulp Media Network's open to anyone who sells anything in our stores. We also try to work with non-endemic. So in-store radio, for instance, like if there's a local festival happening or there's, you know, a local vendor that wants to advertise in the stores, we encourage that as well. So we both work on non-endemic and endemic. I'm going to say our top 30 vendors are probably our most...I guess strategic and evergreen partners, meaning they constantly have something on throughout the whole year. And then smaller vendors based on, know, if they're launching a new innovation, things like that, we partner with them.
Gignac: So it sounds like it's mostly those core brands, those big brands that are a part of the top 30.
Mijares: Yeah. I mean, we're a convenience store, right? What we sell is sips, snacks, and cigs. We can't really advertise the cigs, so it's mostly sips and snacks. And we do sell a of the product. We sell some paper products. We sell some health and beauty things. But the core of the things we sell and the core of the advertising is sips and snacks.
Gignac: How does 7-Eleven define success for its retail media network?
Mijares: If you think about it, we're an immediate consumption retailer. And we're a promotional retailer as well. So success primarily is driving more units. But also, if you think about it, the convenience channel is a primary channel for new product introduction. A lot of our vendors launch new products within the convenience store. Because it's very hard to launch. If you were going to launch a new root beer flavored energy drink, you wouldn't launch it as a 20 pack at a warehouse club. You launch it as a single unit in a convenience store because it's a low commitment purchase. So for some of those products, the success is, 'Did we increase the awareness of the product that we bring more people to the brand, more people to the category, and does this product have a life in multipacks beyond the convenience store?’ So it varies on what the goal of the advertiser is.
Gignac: Do you use those performances to decide whether or not to bring in certain products or certain different varieties of different products? Do you use that data to develop your offerings?
Mijares: Not necessarily. The decision to bring a product into 7-Eleven is made by the merchant team. But we share with the merchant team as well as with the vendors the success of all the campaigns. So sometimes when products come in, they're new, we'll bring them into a few hundred stores. And after they perform well, especially if they perform well, if we are advertising with Gulp Media, we may decide to bring them to the whole chain.
Gignac: How has Gulp Media transformed over time?
Nayyar: I think I was alluding to it earlier, but I think really focusing on our in-store, I think because we are immediate consumption, really focusing on that impulse purchase and using things like gas station TV. So getting them to see this value added offer while they're pumping gas and then transitioning them to come into the store. And when they're in the store using screens or radio to really alert them of value, at the end of the day, think all of us, Gulp Media, merchandising team and vendors, we all want to make sure our customers know about the value that 7-Eleven has. And there's a lot of value to be had, it's just making them aware.
Gignac: So how do you use those different ad channels in that customer journey to make them aware of the value and drive them in store to purchase?
Mijares: Can I add to that a bit? Because a lot of what we did and what Neha alluded to, we started with connecting a very large customer database. We have over 100 million registered members in our loyalty programs. We started connecting that database to all the marketing platforms, digital marketing platforms, social, connected TV, display. The goal there is to, if you think about the marketing funnel, the goal there is to get the awareness and consideration up, right? The evolution of Gulf media has been now in store. It's much more of a trial and adoption. It's literally closing the sale. So the screens at the pump, as well as the audio inside the store, the goal of that is to close the sale, sell the product, drive more humans.
Gignac: And then how do you use data? How do you personalize your messages to customers?
Nayyar: I think that happens a lot with because we have, you know, 100 million member loyalty program. You know, 1 in 4 Americans are a 7Rewards or Speedy Rewards loyalty program. It's really looking at that purchase behavior, purchase transaction data to really understand who are you trying to target. So it's all about personalization, which I think is a customer benefit in itself is getting that right value offer to that customer at the right time in the right way. So we really leverage our first-party data, making sure we do a lot of the campaigns we do when we do things like social and digital or video programmatic display, things like that. We really focus on having custom and unique audiences based on the strategic goals of the vendor. So again, it depends on what are the goals of the vendor. If it's a new innovation and you're trying to get trial, that's very different than someone who's trying to get a customer to buy two units of a product. So having those discussions upfront and really aligning on what is the goal of the campaign and what's that KPI we're really trying to deliver is critical to the success of both the vendor and Gulp Media.
Mijares: But it's a little bit different within the store, right? Because let's say when we talk about Gulp Radio, the same ad is going to be playing and everybody in the store is going to be here. You can't really personalize the message to one individual. But what we're learning right now is the people, the customers and the reason why somebody buys an energy drink at 7 a.m. is very different from buying an energy drink at noon, very different from buying an energy drink at 4 p.m. or buying an energy drink at 10 p.m. So that personalization, it's much more of the message, customizing the message to what are the trigger points that are going to get the customer to buy this particular brand of energy at 7 a.m. versus 10 a.m. versus 4 p.m., that's the sort of personalization we're trying to do, what we're starting to do with radio. And we're going to get there in the bump screens as well.
Nayyar: I totally agree. I mean, with audio, we can even customize it by geo, right? So geo, day parting, know, A-B testing, all those things are things we're excited about and our vendors are excited about too.
Gignac: Yeah, that's great. And then speaking of just new innovations, are there any emerging formats of retail media or channels that you're planning on investing or utilizing in the future, potentially with AI or media on EV chargers, anything like that?
Nayyar: Yeah, I mean, think we utilize AI right now with our in-store radio, our audio program. We actually have recordings done through AI. So vendors can easily do a lot of testing, like they can geotarget, do different voices, different offers at very, very minimal cost. We use it for our proprietary products, too. I mean, the voices are amazing. Like you would have no idea that they're AI and you can literally pick, would like a male or female, you know, with this accent and this vibe and this energy level. And you can create multiple versions of that ad and put them in stores based on whatever your requirements are. So we use it that way right now. And then from a digital perspective, yes, we're really focusing on making sure that depending on weather targeting or where that person is browsing, we're really putting that right product with that right value offer in front of them. And then GSTV, we're working on it right now, but this year we're really focused on weather targeted GSTV because obviously, if it's cold, you're at the pump, want to have a different message than if it's 100 degrees and you're at the pump. Those are some of the things we're working on.
Gignac: Does 7-Eleven work with any technology providers for its retail media network?
Nayyar: Yeah. So we're partnered with Trade Desk and LiveRAM. Trade Desk is our DSP. also have our GSTV as a vendor for our Pump TV. And then we work with Qsic. They're our in-store radio.
Gignac: OK, great. What advice would you give to other convenience store chains that are on the journey to launching their own retail media network?
Mijares: Let me answer this in a roundabout way. When we launched it, we did not want to contribute to the problem. Meaning it was really easy to buy media before, but as soon as retail media started emerging for all of our vendors, for all the CPGs, now you needed to talk to all the traditional digital media providers, but now you need to talk to retailer A, retailer B, retailer C. So what we wanted to do was make sure that we put a product together that we use internally, right, and that is not difficult for our vendors to use. And in that spirit, when we launched it, and I alluded to this before, we didn't just launch retail media. What we launched was something we jokingly call the immediate consumption ecosystem, ICE, but now it's stuck. And so we call it that. And it's a set of tools that we use internally and give access to all our vendors that help them manage the whole product funnel. all the data comes in an analytics platform called C-Shopper. You can find opportunities there. We launched something called the Brain Freeze Collective, which is our customer panel. We have over 300,000 customers that have signed up for it. We can do any kind of research. Once you find an opportunity, research as you know what to do, then you can talk to the customers through retail media. So it's a full circle thing. And all the exposure files from retail media and all the results go back into the analytics platform so you can measure the uplift. As a whole, it's a solution for the whole of 7-Eleven, not just retail media as, we have one, two, because I'm not sure that's going to work. At least we didn't think that was going to work.
Gignac: Yeah, that's really interesting. Is there anything else you wanted to add to that or add to the conversation as a whole?
Mijares: There's one thing, because I think everybody gets really excited about retail media and it's great. I mean, there's a reason why it is great. And we're talking about it in there is the retailer has the relationship with the consumer and all the data, right? And the ability to close the sales. I think similar to that, something very similar will happen with our research panel, right? Where traditional research, you do it based on what's called declared behaviors. Are you trying to eat healthy? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm trying to eat healthy. When you look in the database, yeah, not really, whereas the Brain Freeze Collective is based on observed behaviors. When we're trying to launch a better for you option, a vegetarian option, we actually look in the database. ‘Hey, who can we see that are trying to eat better? Who can we see that it seemed to be vegetarians?’ We recruit those people and after we do the research and the test, we can see how they behaved. So in the same way that a lot of our vendors are realizing that for certain advertising, retail media is a lot better than traditional media, I think something similar would happen for research.
Nayyar: I mean, I think my biggest kind of feedback and advice is like making sure we always keep the customer first. I think, you know, retail media, it gets a lot, right? And then you're focused on the KPI. Is the customer your vendor? Is the customer is just coming to our store? I mean, the whole point of retail media is you want that personalization. You want to make sure that, you know, my energy drinker knows about the value that I'm offering, And we're providing a seamless shopping experience, whether that's seeing something at the pump and driving them in or seeing something in the store, but you want it to not be in their face abrupt. You really want it to enhance their shopping experience. So I think the biggest thing for retail media networks is always focus on your customer first to enhance their journey, because that's what everyone is trying to do.
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