Usable Clicks

7-Eleven Fails With Online Execution

During my normal morning routine of coffee and email I noticed something unusual.  This particular morning I was in the midst of adjusting my fantasy basketball lineup on Yahoo, when out of the corner of my eye I recognized a street name on an adjacent ad. It’s not very often that you see a postal address in a banner ad, much less one with a street name that you’re familiar with.

I didn’t see it coming and I certainly didn’t know it yet, but I had fallen victim to a geo-targeted campaign gone wrong.  The 7-Eleven ad that grabbed my attention can be seen here on the left.

In case you were wondering where 2021 South MacArthur is, it’s in Oklahoma City, OK – approximately 1,500 miles from where I was sitting when the I saw the 7-Eleven ad. This targeting gone wrong isn’t as bad as you think and is probably not even 7-Eleven’s fault. I actually used to live in Oklahoma City and I’m sure Yahoo must have that information stored somewhere, although a quick search didn’t reveal where (not in my main profile, flickr or delicious).

This story goes from bad to worse when I went to click the ad. Click Click. Click. It’s not working. While I’m looking at the ad the following items painfully come to mind (in this order):

1. Who spends money on ads you can’t click
2. This must be a mistake
3. Why is their a phone number and address but no landing page or online application link.
4. At the bare minimum, why not have an information page. They could even get fancy and link to a PDF employment application. They already let potential franchisees and vendors fully apply online.
5. Before I get too critical, is it possible I am missing something? To ensure this wasn’t some big joke, I called the number listed in the ad.
6. It’s no joke. It’s actually worse than I thought. According to the employee who answered the phone – “To apply, you have to drive to the corporate office, fill out the application, and then wait for them to review the paperwork before they inform you if you have qualified for an interview.”
7. Is this ad really not clickable?
8. Why aren’t the city and state part of the address on the ad? If they were so confident of the targeting technology and media placement why did they feel the need to include the area code in the phone number?
9. They are making the process so cumbersome, it makes me wonder if they actually want people to apply.

To sum up my scattered thought stream from above. 7-Eleven is running colorful and attractive direct response recruitment ads. These ads require a prospective employee to call, drive, fill out an application on premises, and wait while a corporate employee reviews it to determine if they qualify for an interview. It should be noted that you must come prepared and properly dressed for the interview which, per my phone conversation, typically happens immediately. For those keeping score at home, add “get dressed and clear your afternoon for an interview you might not get” to the ridiculous things 7-Eleven requires you to do instead of allowing online applications.

On an unrelated note, but also under the category of bad executions, I noticed the address listed was a corporate location and had 1 comment listed in google maps. This comment was pulled from Citysearch and was written by Citysearch employee Katie Heffernan.  Clearly she wasn’t aware it was a corporate 7-Eleven location when she was spamming comments on behalf of Citysearch. How many corporate locations do you know that are referred to as a corner store? “Forget about asking the neighbor for a cup of sugar–this corner store aims to sell all those last-minute necessities and more …” Read the rest of her insightful 7-eleven comment on Citysearch and G0ogle. Sounds like Katie should visit 2021 S. MacArthur before she writes her next review, though I doubt she’ll find any sugar there.

What does this mean for 7-Eleven and similar campaigns? Stop what you’re doing and think about your user’s experience. You will be better off for it.

For the good news – at least SOMEBODY is hiring!