7-Eleven Customers to Determine Election ’12?

By BEN HEINEMANN The old saying “Will it play in Peoria?” could very well change to “Will it play in 7 Eleven?” now that the convenience store franchise has rolled out its first ever API. 7-Eleven’s foray into web tools will measure the its customers’ political party affiliations based on their choice of cup color: a red cup (to represent the republican presidential candidate) or a blue cup (to represent the democratic presidential candidate). This is the third election during which 7-Eleven has released the cups but the first time the data is being made public. In its description of the API, 7-Eleven states that in the past, its cup poll “has been within a couple of percentage points of the popular vote.” Now, the results, which are based on tracking cup sales in the “very unscientific poll,” are available to the public through the API. Says 7-Eleven: “We think it's pretty interesting data heading into the November election - you can drill right down to zip codes even in the battle ground states. We'll be expanding our API to include location data and product catalog in the near future.” Does 7-Eleven’s move into the API space mean more businesses and franchises will release sales data for the sake of the curious or customer trends? Only time will tell. Anyone who is interested can track the API, via Programmable Web, by clicking here. 7-Eleven ranked 5th overall in our Top 100 Veteran-Friendly Franchises.