Promoting a branded product range

7-Eleven is Australia's second-largest privately owned company, franchising convenience stores across the eastern seaboard. This Case Study discusses 7-Eleven Australia's partnership with Krispy Kreme, examining how this aided overall business objectives, as well as how the partnership was structured, communicated and promoted.

As a result of reading this case study, students should be able to:

• Discuss the opportunities this gave 7-Eleven and Krispy Kreme 
• Explain how the scheme was tested and rolled out
• Understand how and why the partnership was marketed and promoted

Introduction

With approximately 600 outlets nationally, 7-Eleven is a familiar sight to anyone who lives on the eastern seaboard of Australia. 7-Eleven Australia is the country’s second-largest privately-owned company, developing and franchising convenience stores under licence from 7-Eleven Inc., USA.

Internal communication: from pilot scheme to national rollout

7-Eleven trialled sales of Krispy Kreme in 39 selected Queensland stores starting in January 2012. The purpose of the pilot project was to ensure the robustness of the manufacturing and supply chain processes and test out the offering, including finding out how many doughnuts were likely to be sold, before rolling out the initiative across the entire chain.

Ensuring effective supply and logistics

Operations management is the administration of business practices in order to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organisation. Its primary function is to convert materials and labour into goods and services as efficiently as possible to maximise profit.

Marketing and promoting Krispy Kreme

An important part of the rollout was to ensure awareness of Krispy Kreme’s availability at 7-Eleven. This was done through a mixture of marketing, advertising and PR. This combination is often called the marketing mix.

Conclusion 

The strategic partnership between 7-Eleven and Krispy Kreme has been a huge success.