iPhone Goes to the Kwik-E-Mart

Okay, this is going to sound like one big paid product placement (it's not -- it's actually more like two), but I swear it isn't -- I'm just talking about some prominent pop culture themes that just happen to have a very commerce-heavy element to them:

In advance of the upcoming Simpsons movie, Fox and 7-Eleven teamed up to make over eleven 7-Eleven stores as Kwik-E-Marts (which are, of course, the very 7-Elevenish convenience stores from the Simpsons cartoon).

[Blogger John mentioned it, too.]

Not only did they rebrand the store and have standups of the characters, but they also have Simpsonia for sale (it's in regular stores, too), including Buzz Cola, Squishees, and Krusty-Os (though no Duff beer).

Now, looking at the list of locations, the DC-area one is a little ways out (I'm lazy and Beltway traffic sucks -- second-worst in the nation), but I see that in a brilliantly Silicon Valley-targeted move, they have a location in Mountain View, CA.

Mountain View is home to a lot of tech companies, including Google and AOL's West Coast offices. Techies love the Simpsons, which equals lots of bloggy coverage.  So, I figured I could find someone to send me some pictures.

Lo and behold, the first person I pinged, Journals Project Manager Leona, said that her husband Larry was going today, so he was going to send me some pictures, which are above. Some highlights:

Storefront. Note people scarily dressed up as Simpsons characters.

Apu says, "Thank you, come again!"

Thanks to Larry for all dozen photos. He had driven around to 7 stores last night, trying to find the right one. He finally found the right store, then also went back for some daytime photos, and presumably to stock up on more Krusty-Os and Buzz Cola.

Apparently, Larry is a huge Simpsons fan.

Unpaid Product Placement #2: The iPhone
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Now, not only did Larry send along the photos, but he took them and sent them to me using his new iPhone.

Check out Leona's blog entry for her tale of the iPhone, with video (which I will share here). It's got a lot of shrieky goodness:

This is from Friday night in the San Jose Apple Store.

Now, just so you're warned, I actually have another Simpsons entry planned (this one with a crowd participation element), as well as one talking about a Transformer-movie tie-in, so the market-y goodness isn't over yet.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: kwik-e-mart, 7-eleven, simpsons, mountain view, iphone, marketing